Page 58 of House of Furies
“Yes, I have, but I don’t want to be different. I’ve only ever wanted to feel like everyone else.”
“Close your eyes,” he said softly, and not knowing why, I did. But that was wrong; I did know why. He wanted me to prove he was right. He wanted me to know, really know and feel, that I was one of them. “Bread and butter. Think it. It’s what you want.”
I had more or less memorized the relevant passages. Very well, the relevant chapter.
If the Changeling’s parentage is of sufficient dark power, they can transform objects and even their own bodies for varying periods of time. Some may turn a rope into a snake for a mere instant. Others can change their form entirely, fooling even the mimicked subject’s family, friends, or lovers.
Yet I did not want that to be true. If it was, it meant that I not only belonged here with these miscreants and monsters, but that I may not fit in anywhere else. It would mean I was not human at all, that the belonging I so longed for with my mother, my grandparents, at Pitney, had been the most hopeless and impossible dream all along. My eyes were shut tight. I shut them tighter still. I could feel a sob welling in my throat, because for all I wanted this untruth of his to disappear, I could not stop thinking of bread and butter, bread and butter...
I knew the instant it changed. The instant it worked. The instant I was changed.
And I heard the short, delighted intake of breath from theyoung man across from me. When I opened my eyes, there was a dainty piece of toast pinched between my fingers and it was shiny with melted butter.
“Louisa... you only ever wanted to feel like everyone else, yet everyone else can’t do that.”
I swallowed, hard, willing my sobs away. By God, if I could change a biscuit to toast with a mere thought, then I could keep down the cries that stoppered up my throat. I stared at the bread and marveled at the stillness in my hand—it was as if my body had known this was possible all along and it was only my stubborn mind lagging behind.
“When will it change back?” I whispered, stricken.
Mr. Morningside lowered his head, watching me through the thickness of his dark, dark lashes. “Only when you want it to or when your concentration breaks.”
I let the buttered bread slip from my hand. It was a biscuit again before it touched wood.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chasing Canis Infernalis
No demonologist worth his salt can go a year or two in this discipline without hearing whispers of the infernal hounds, often calledcanis infernalis, or otherwise referred to as hellhounds. Rumored to be dogs born of bone-crushing hyenas of Africa that mingled with unknown and terrible beasts from the darkest unmapped, unchallenged corners of the plains, I knew I could not rest until I saw one of these creatures for myself.
It was in Marrakech that I came across a man claiming to breed these beasts. The information was bad, but meeting himwhetted my appetite. If the average market swindler knew of these dogs, then perhaps they were more than myth after all. I’m certain many a foolish wanderer was tricked into purchasing one of his inferior animals, but I lingered in the city, keeping to the least reputable establishments. I will admit with some shame that I patronized opium-addled dens of sin, crime, and iniquity, and broke bread with folk from all over the world who had come to the labyrinthine markets to escape—and for some, to simply bathe in depravity until it drowned them. Often I would sit late at night, most frequently in a place I will call The Spinning Djinn, smoking a water pipe and listening to the idle gossip, not discarding even the most witless and intoxicated babble.
At last a pair of young ladies appeared; too young, I thought, to be alone in the darker haunts of Marrakech. But come they did, ordering simple tea from the purveyor and sitting on purple cushions to speak in low voices. The shorter girl carried a sturdy leather bag that she guarded closely. They caught my attention because the taller one wore a large necklace of teeth, and her arm had recently been injured. The wound looked grievous; even through bindings, fresh blood seeped through the linens. Veiled and quiet, they took caller after caller, speaking to adventurous sorts that came and went.
Just before midnight I approached them, offering to buy tea for us all. They agreed, though wary, and asked what I wanted.
“Those teeth you wear,” I said, pointing to the taller one’s adornment. “I hunt a similar beast.”
“No, mister, you don’t,” the shorter girl replied. Her eyes twinkled sapphire behind her veil. There was no telling her nation of origin, but her accent, surprisingly, sounded similar to a Bostonian’s I once met. “Thank you for the tea, now move along.”
“I have money.”
“Not enough.”
With a shrug, I pulled what looked like a small stone from my pocket and placed it on the low table between us. The untrained eye would think nothing of it, but I suspected these travelers would know its worth.
They nudged each other, sharing a look I could well interpret. Then they leaned close and had a whispered exchange, and I enjoyed my tea, noticing that the leather satchel between them was moving. The taller girl took the egg on the table and stood, and then they both left quickly. Only the wriggling bag remained.
I took the satchel and left, not daring to open the latch until I was again in my lodgings. When I looked inside, a small brown face peered out at me, innocent and long-snouted. The fur on its neck bristled and then fell, and a wet black nose touched my fingers. It licked my palm and squirmed out of the bag.
In time it would grow big, but that would not be for perhaps two hundred years. The beasts grew slowly, but when at their full size became immensely powerful. If tales held true, a fully grown hound stood taller than two men and could snap a drafthorse between its jaws like a twig. I would never find out where this pup had been found or from what terrible mother it had been stolen, I knew only that in his dark eyes a low fire simmered, one that would eventually swell into an inferno.
Rare Myths and Legends: The Collected Findings of H. I. Morningside, page 50
Asoul braver than I would immediately run to test the limits of this power. If I were just a common thief prowling the streets of Malton, I would have been more than happy to know of this power, but now it marked me as one of them. I wanted to forget all about the biscuit, the bread, the feeling that shimmered through me when I felt the change take place in my hand.
Mr. Morningside dismissed me after taking a tracing of the paper I had found and the symbol on the wall. He encouraged me to experience my powers but not to exhaust myself, for in his words, “The cost of such beautiful, dark magicks is time.”
That meant little to me, but I remembered Mary lamenting being unable to shield me from afar after using such skill during the storm and the widow’s death. Perhaps it would be hours or even days before I could use that “skill” of mine again. I pushed it out of my mind. And aye, I know how foolish thatsounds, how strange. Why, if a person woke one morning to find they had wings, would they not attempt to fly? But those wings, like my power—my Changeling power—marked me as other. God, it was no wonder nobody at Pitney liked the look of me. Why strangers recoiled. Why my grandparents would rather pay the high cost of room and board rather than care for me themselves.
