Page 64 of Flame and Sparrow

I made it halfway to the door before she called after me. “So tell me, Little Spitfire…are you planning on telling him what you are?”

I froze.

“You must realize you can’t hide forever.”

“I…I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Oh, let’s not play dumb, now.”

I fought the urge to reach for my sister’s necklace, afraid it might be snatched away from me if I drew attention to it. “How do you…”

“Child, it’smymagic that’s been hiding you.”

I stared at her, heart pounding, unable to draw a deep breath.

And as I stared, the russet color of Rieta’s irises changed, shifting to a vaguely familiar shade of gold. The mark on her wrist flashed, and then it shifted as well, twisting away from the flame shape it had been and becoming a winged serpent biting its own tail.

The symbol of the Goddess of Control.

“Why do you think your littledisguiseis so strong here?” she asked. “Did you honestly think that trinket around your neck had been keeping you hidden all this time? That it could manage such magic under the incredible power and pressure within this realm?”

I tried to think of a reply. An argument. An excuse…something.

I couldn’t.

I was such a damnfool.

“I just wondered if you’d ever come clean about it on your own,” Clearly-Not-Rieta said with a shrug.

Then she began to change in earnest. Her thick red hair deepened to black; her careworn face became smoother, darker; her slightly hunched and squat stature stretched into a tall, elegant form.

Soon an entirely different being stood before me, and she was not a servant of Dravyn or any other Marr—she was the Serpent Goddess, Mairu…and I felt like a complete and utter fool for not realizing it before now.

I stumbled away from her, a confusing storm of anger, shock, and betrayal roaring through me. Several moments passed before I finally found my voice. “You tricked me.”

She turned to the mirror attached to the nearby dresser, patting a few loose sprigs of her plaited and coiled hair back into place. “The mortals sometimes call me the Goddess of Trickery, don’t they? You should have expected no less. Let this be a lesson to you, hm? You aren’t the only thing in this realm that is more than what it seems.”

My blood remained at its boiling point, but I held my tongue. A reminder of this goddess’s immense power still hovered in the air, the entire room full of an electrifying energy that made my hair stand on end. Hurling insults at her didn’t seem like the wisest choice in this charged moment.

“Does it make you feel any better to know that Rieta actuallyisa real being, and the servant to the Fire God that she claimed to be? This is only the second time I’ve borrowed her appearance. And I only did it because she herself is busy elsewhere, and I was—quite frankly—bored.”

It did make me feel better, although only marginally so.

“Did Dravyn order you to do this? Did he tell you to spy on me? To see if you could trick me?”

“As though I take orders from one of my own rank.” She scoffed. “And, just so we’re clear, were you not alsotrying to trickus?”

I opened my mouth to fire off a response, only to quickly close it.

She had a point.

We could have gone around in circles about the situation indefinitely, but it wouldn’t have been a productive use of either of our time. I avoided her sharp and prying gaze, trying to think, to puzzle out my next move, even as my thoughts continued to spin.

“I assume you’ve told him the truth about me, though?” I asked.

“We do have some allegiance to one another,” she said with a shrug. “I could not have kept it from him in good faith.”

“So he knew. He’s been playing a game with me this whole time.”

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