Page 191 of The Iron Flower

“Yes,” Alder affirms, her posture serene and tall, her voice a melodic lull. She sets unblinking forest green eyes on Yvan and me. “Then we will transfer the glamour to the two of you.”

Yvan meets Alder’s unnervingly placid stare in that unflinching, intense way of his.

“All right, then,” Tierney says, her face rigid with determination even as she trembles. “Let’s do this.”

Valasca glances toward the ceiling, and I follow her gaze.

Fitful, dark clouds are forming high above Tierney, rapidly spreading out to fill the barn’s roof and obscuring the crisscrossing rafters. Threads of lightning pulse from cloud to cloud, eliciting an indignant caw from Ariel’s raven.

Valasca looks to Tierney with concern. “We’ll be right here,” she tells her with steadfast reassurance. “We’ll help you through this.”

“Just do it,” Tierney says roughly.

Alder moves toward her, the motion smooth and spare, as if she’s gliding across the floor. She gently lowers her branch to Tierney’s quaking shoulder as the clouds grow dense and fitful, so thick that I’m no longer able to see the rafters. Mist envelops us all, along with a cool dew that sets my skin prickling.

My eyes meet Yvan’s through the mist as Alder begins a low chant in the flowing Dryad language, and I feel a tremor of surprise. It sounds so much like our Ancient Tongue, the sacred language used during our holy services.

A static energy picks up in the room. Tierney’s storm-driven lightning increases, pulsing the mist with flashes of white.

Tierney’s form abruptly shudders, and Alder steps back as Tierney’s wavering form darkens. My eyes widen as she bulges and stretches, the dark mass of her straining outward, rippling like she’s a molting insect.

A face forms in the darkened mass, contorted in pain—her eyes closed, her mouth open in a tortured, soundless circle.

Tierney’s scream suddenly tears through the room, and the glamour springs away from her and into the rune-marked stone with a loud snap that reverberates down my spine.

For a split second, I’m aware of several things at once—Tierney collapsing to the ground. The clouds and lightning blinking out of existence, the mist abruptly clearing. The surface of the disc in Alder’s hand now swirling gray and black, as if overtaken by a storm.

Tierney cries out in agony, her neck stretched backward, blue hair splayed out all around her, long scraps of cloth wrapped mercilessly tight around her body.

Valasca curses and pulls out a rune-knife. She throws herself onto Tierney, her knife a blur, and slices at what I realize is Tierney’s childhood clothing, now much too small for her adult body.

Tierney’s whole body loosens as she’s freed from the cloth bindings, her chest heaving as she gulps in great lungfuls of air.

Valasca helps Tierney into a sitting position as Tierney gasps for breath and struggles to hold the tattered remains of the child-size dress over herself. I unbutton my cloak, swing it off and swiftly wrap it around her.

Alder’s almost supernatural forest calm has been breached. She’s staring at Tierney, her green eyes wide, the rune-stone clasped loosely in her hand, as if she’s in a slight daze over what she’s accomplished.

Stunned, I pick up one of the discarded cloth scraps, realizing that this is the dress Tierney must have been glamoured in—when she was three years old.

The dress has been rendered to glistening, viridian remnants, the fabric decorated with whirls of small, gleaming river-smoothed stones.

Lovingly hand-embroidered.

Tierney’s skin is marked by bright red slashes where the too-small clothing tore at her skin.

Lake-blue skin that is not static in color.

Tierney’s hair and skin both ripple dark blue, the color a perfect reflection of deep water. She glances up at me, her eyes such a dark blue they’re almost black, with the same water-like quality as her skin. My cloak slips off her shoulders as she clutches it tightly against her front.

Her body, so long constricted by her Gardnerian skin, seems loosened and freed. And her features are no longer sharp and hard, but all lovely curves—her nose widened, her lips full and deep-blue, her ears pointed in two long, graceful swoops and her back flowing like a gently winding stream.

“What do I look like?” Tierney breathlessly asks me.

Tears fill my eyes. “You’re beautiful. You’resobeautiful.”

Tierney extends an arm and views it in wonderment. Her nails are a gleaming opalescent blue. A laugh bursts from her. “I can breathe,” she says, looking around at all of us, her voice breaking. “I can finally breathe freely.” She pauses and takes a long breath. “It feels...sogood.” She rolls her shoulders. “I canmove.”

Valasca’s gaze lights on a metal bucket nearby. She retrieves it, polishes its gleaming surface with the edge of her tunic, then solemnly brings it over to Tierney.

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