It was like that when I was staring in the mirror—suddenly I could see me in that gorgeous, ethereally lovely face.
“Oh!” I gasped, reaching out to touch my reflection. “Oh my God, it is me.”
“What did she look like before the Suva?” Lachlan asked, Bran, sounding interested.
“She was still beautiful, just not as obvious about it,” was Bran’s answer—which I thought was really nice, though somewhat inaccurate.
“No, I wasn’t,” I told Lachlan. “I was completely plain—utterly forgettable. Dishwater brownish-blonde hair, hazel, no-color eyes, no figure to speak of…” I looked down to where my new, much larger boobs, were filling out the front of his black cape, which was still covering me. “Honestly,” I told him. “If you met me before, you’d forget me a minute later. I was that meh.”
Lachlan snapped his fingers.
“That must have been part of the geas—to make you so plain nobody would look at you twice. Someone was hiding you here in plain sight, in the human world.”
“Hiding me?” I asked, frowning. “Hiding me from what?”
Lachlan shook his head.
“I don’t know. But now that your beauty is revealed I’m sure we’re going to find out.”
“How do you mean?” Bran asked, looking concerned.
“I mean,” Lachlan said. “That if someone took such pains to hide Emma, there has to be a reason. Most probably, it means somebody is looking for her. And now that the geas is gone, they’re likely going to find her.”
34
I didn’t like the sound of that and from the look on his face, Bran didn’t either.
“We must hide her again then,” he said. “I think I still have some of the Suva.”
“No. No way.” I held up a hand to ward him off, as though he held the bottle full of pinky-purple goop in his hand already. “I’m never taking that stuff again! You have no idea how painful it was to get rid of the effects this last time—it felt like I was being skinned alive.”
“I know,” Lachlan said quietly, frowning. “I truly am sorry about that, little one.”
“How do you know?” I demanded. “You only did the spell.”
“No.” He shook his head. “I felt the pain along with you. It was the only way to even begin to pay for the power I needed to break the geas.”
“You mean you felt that too?” I asked, staring at him. “The thousands of invisible fingers pinching and peeling away your hide? Pulling your hair…pushing hot coals into your eyes?”
Lachlan nodded.
“It was agony,” he admitted.
“But you still kept chanting,” I pointed out. “How could you do that through all the pain? All I could do was scream.”
“I knew if I stopped, you’d be stuck in the other form forever,” he said simply. “And you were very clear that you didn’t want that.”
“I didn’t want this either,” I said, turning back to the mirror. “I mean, don’t get me wrong, it’s kind of nice to be so, uh, pretty. But it’s weird too.”
“You’re more than pretty, Emma,” Bran told me, smiling a little. “You’re beyond beautiful. You make Morganna Starchild look like a guttersnipe in comparison.”
I could feel myself blushing and in the mirror that girl with the rose-leaf complexion turned a delicate shade of pink.
No, not the girl, I reminded myself. That’s me now, as weird as it seems. That girl in the mirror is Emma.
“Okay, I don’t know what a ‘guttersnipe’ is but thanks, Bran—that’s really nice of you to say,” I told him. I looked at Lachlan. “And thank you for going through the pain with me and not quitting on the spell. As weird as it is to look like this, it’s much nicer than being a hunchbacked witch all my life.”
The Dark Fae gave me that lazy, one-sided grin of his.
“I thought you might think so.”
“I think you’ll enjoy wearing your true face—once you get used to it,” Bran told me. “Just imagine walking into Nocturne Academy on Monday morning as your true self. You can sit at the Fae table now, of course—none of them can deny your status. You’re definitely Sidhe.”
“I’d say High Sidhe,” Lachlan said, frowning. “Yet she bears the midnight hair—like my own.” He pointed to his own wild raven hair. “Perhaps she’s a half-breed, like me?” he asked.
Bran shook his head.
“Look at her eyes. They’re unique and no mistake—they mark her out as different but special. Set apart.”
Lachlan gave a low laugh.
“Or maybe you just think so because you’re a bit infatuated with our little Emma here.”
Bran’s high cheekbones flushed.
“What are you saying? That I would allow myself to become infatuated with a female I have sworn to guard and protect?”
“I’m saying she’s extraordinarily lovely and there’s no shame in being just a little in love with her,” Lachlan remarked, smiling again at Bran. “Goddess Bright, I am myself for that matter, though I just met her. But not for her looks—her power is what draws me.”