Page 80 of The Dark, Dead, Deep

“I’ll get the silt soap and some fresh clothes,” Urma declared, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “You smell like a dead fish; I suspect you feel like one too in those rags.”

I wasn’t even offended. She spoke the truth.

Once Urma had given me a change of clothing—a dress that looked like it had been in the elder Sídhe’s closet for longer than I had been alive—she left the room so I could wash and dress.

I had been wearing the same dress that Elsbeth had given me back at the Reeds, and I didn’t even want to think about returning it in its ripped and soiled state.

When I looked in the mirror and lathered my hair, my eyes were rimmed purple, and my cheeks were more sallow than I had ever seen them, even after using the High Throne.

Days without hope, and staring at walls that seemed to creep closer every time I blinked had broken something inside of me—leaving behind jagged edges that hurt whenever I breathed.

Rainn and Tormalugh’s visits had helped cushion the blow of the hopelessness I had felt in the dungeon, and though I would have never told them to their faces, I was thankful for that.

But my mind snagged on Shay’s absence.

Though I had initially gauged the nymph as a being that thrived on flirting with anything that moved, it seemed that nothing I did made him warm to me.

Perhaps that was just as well.

Why would I want to be friends with someone that avoided me as if I had gill rot? I was not a masochist and had no intention of becoming one soon.

My mind must have drifted because the water prodded enough to startle me. I glanced at the mirror, my braided hair and my body swathed in fabric three sizes too big, made of a rubbery dark fur that seemed to repel the water. It wasn’t easy to swim in, like the more modern styles.

I eyed my discarded dress with longing, though there was no way I could put it back on in its state.

Urma knocked on the door, sticking her head through the gap before entering. She clicked her tongue against her teeth and studied me for a moment before nodding in approval.

“I can work with this,” Urma stated, but it seemed she was talking to herself rather than me.

I said nothing about the size of the dress. Urma was doing me a favor by helping transport me across the castle.

Hopefully, if I managed to wake Cormac up, Lady Bloodtide would give up her campaign to see me rot in the dungeon until I turned to foam.

Urma swam forward until her face was directly in front of mine. She studied me like a dressmaker would study a mannequin. After a long moment, she lifted her hand and propped the space between my eyes.

I winced, opening an eye in disdain. “What was that for?”

“I thought a piranha had snuck in and got your tongue.” Urma chuckled. “You’ve been nothing but piss and vinegar since you trespassed into my room, and now you’re silent.”

“I didn’t want to insult you if you’re doing me a favor,” I muttered, glancing away.

“It’ll take more than a young undine to insult me, child.” Urma touched the crease between my eyes more gently this time. “Give the glamour a moment. Your body will feel strange, the magic will be a second skin, but you will be unchanged.”

I nodded. “I understand how a glamour works.”

“Good, good.” Her tongue pressed between her teeth as she concentrated for a moment. The water shimmered and rippled, and I felt Urma’s magic roll over me, coating me without sinking into my skin.

Her wrinkled cheeks stretched as she smiled more brightly than I had seen, and she clapped her hands together in a declaration. “There. You make a fine mermaid, child.”

My eyes widened, and though I could feel my two legs, I could no longer see any evidence of them. Where my legs had been, with their scales, webbing, and fins down the side, a tail the same pearlescent white as my hair and freckles swished. The contrast was stark against my skin.

“A white tail?” My lips parted in shock. “Lady Bloodtide will know it’s me, surely?”

Urma waved her hand dismissively. “Feel your face, child.”

I lifted my fingers to my cheek and rubbed the skin, finding contours and wrinkles that hadn’t been there the moment before.

My mind couldn’t quite grasp the disconnect between feeling the glamour on the tips of my fingers but not on my face.

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