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“I know the dark well; it and I have becohten reat fool,” she whispered

We ascended quickly, the liquid stone of abeneath us I followed her scent in the black, the trail of her body heat lighting , and the pattern of our feet on the rock like rain in a forest It was not unpleasant

As suddenly as we had entered the wo into a round room at the top of the tohich held the

“Welcoadin”

Her voice echoed in the chaet We could say nothing at first, so stunned e at the girl’s appearance Her head, which we had seen froilded and cool-skinned, repulsive to me but beautiful byandto jaundiced claws; her hips twisted into a deer’s delicate haunches; and turquoise wings jutted painfully fro blood in great swathes Her feet sparkled green as underwater opals, webbed and sliauzy dress were silver as a fish, smoothly coated in translucent scales Feather-fine fins sprouted from her heels Her breasts, which below had seemed milky and unbleer, dark and feral stripes beginning to show across her delicate collarbone A wolfish tail thuh the beaded fabric The ends of her braids appeared to be slowly flapping, the veined surface of dragonfly wings shining through her curls

Worse, all around her were severed heads mounted on the walls, what once were es of metamorphosis: One was half covered in serpent-hide, her hair hissing violently; another had lost herout of her face in its place; another’s eyes had shrunk terribly, and dark hair covered her batlike features Theus with eyes that seemed not entirely dead

“You see,” the maiden ad guards the door They cohts all in a row, and run like frightened squirrels when they see what I am”

I saw pity coalesce on the Witch’s face, and she took the reat red tears, which fell on her dress like some unspeakable wine “Tellher veined hair

“He is trying to changelike a wounded hawk, “as he tried to change them He took me from my father’s house…”

I WAS BORN FAR, FAR FROM HERE ON MIDWINTER’S Night, in the middle of a storm that tore the tiles from the roof and flooded the sky with clouds blacker than chimneys I drew first breath in a tall torapped with ivy and lilies like waxing h with quartz Wind battered at the s; the sky boiled with thunder TheShe smiled at me, her face tired and white, full of sorrow, and died with her finger clutched in my tiny hand

When the wild milkwoods and chestnuts had blooain, a woman of radiant face and hair like a river of fire, her body like the living sun entering our hall Her na ith vast lands, and had two daughters of her own, Isaura and Ien, somewhat older than I, each more proud and beautiful than the other

I see you so

But they were not like their exotic ly dull and stupid, their only worth lying in the golden shades of their practiced curls They were little golden birds, chirping and e each other’s little pink hands I quickly became my stepmother’s favorite, quick and clever as I was She was an ierly as a colt its master

I adored her

Obviously, my new sisters hated me