Page 96 of Magic Forsaken

I threw back the blanket and swung my legs over the side of the bed.

“Where am I? Is my family okay?”

“You’re in my house,” Kira informed me. “Or my store, rather. I don’t live here full time anymore, but Hugh does, and he keeps it safe.”

I recalled the disgruntled expression of the gargoyle I’d met my first night on the job and wondered how he felt about having an intruder in his space.

“And your family is fine,” she added. “Faris has kept them updated on your condition.”

Mycondition…

“If it’s any consolation, I can’t handle any of the Idrian liquors either.” Kira offered me a commiserating look. “Maybe because I was raised human, but I react almost as badly as they do.”

Oh crap. “How do humans react?” My voice sounded oh so very casual, when on the inside I was anything but.

“Depends on the human and the liquor in question, but the combination lands a few people in the hospital every year. No matter how many warnings we give them, they justhaveto try the magic juice. Like they think they can get magic from drinking it or something.” She rolled her eyes.

Clearly, I’d had a narrow escape. It was probably a miracle they’d chalked up my reaction to an allergy instead of figuring out the truth.

But in the midst of my panic over that near miss, I was also deeply relieved. I hadn’t wanted to believe Callum—or even Angelica—would drug me. I was just going to need to be far more careful moving forward.

“How long do I have until the banquet?” I stood up carefully, keeping one hand on the bed in case my legs decided not to hold me up. But other than feeling a little lightheaded, everything seemed to be in working order.

“No need to worry about the banquet.” Kira seemed to be making a deliberate effort to sound soothing. “Callum isn’t expecting you to work. You can just focus on recovering.”

“I’m going,” I insisted. “I feel fine.” And this was my only chance. I had to talk to Callum. I had to get answers before it was too late and then decide what to do.

“If you’re sure…” Kira shot me one last questioning look, and when I maintained my stubborn stance, she grinned and whipped out her phone.

“Okay then. We don’t have much time, and I’m going to need to do some research, so we better get busy.”

At first,I was confused by her insistence that we didn’t have much time. It was barely past noon, and the banquet started atseven. All I needed to do was put on the dress, let her curl my hair and do my makeup, and voilà—I’d be fancy.

As it turned out, I hadnoidea what was involved in getting ready for a formal event like this one.

First she dragged me into her living room and spent the next hour doing a manicure and pedicure while her hairless cat, Chicken, looked on from his perch on the back of the couch with baleful skepticism.

She put something in my hair—multiple somethings—then proceeded to experiment with updos, curls, braids, pins, and who even knew what else. Once she was happy with the result, she started in on my makeup.

And she wouldn’t let me see. Just insisted she’d watched all the tutorials and found the best colors for my skin and hair and that I should trust her.

Given that I knew nothing about makeup, it wasn’t like I had a choice, but a part of me was convinced I was going to come out of this looking like a showgirl sans the feathers.

After what felt like six hours—because that was literally how long it took—she finally let me put on the dress. Strapped on a pair of sparkly, low-heeled sandals from her own collection. Added a few spritzes of hairspray and something that smelled expensive.

Then she led me back to her bedroom, dragged a full-length mirror out of the closet and leaned it against the wall.

“Okay,” she said, standing in front of it to block my view, her hands clasped together and an oddly hesitant expression on her face. “You can look now. And if you hate it, you can say so. I had a lot of fun, but that doesn’t mean it’s going to be something you like, and you should like the way you look. We can change anything except the dress.”

Then she stepped to the side.

And I got a good look at myself in the mirror.

Or at least I got a look at the woman currently pretending to be me.

On the inside, I was still a mess of competing fears and desires. A woman without a home, trying to make peace with her past. A tentative disaster, stumbling blindly forward and trying to cope with all the mistakes she was making along the way.

But the mirror showed the person I wanted to be. Not her dress—though it was even more beautiful than I remembered—but her confidence.

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