The room spun like I was on a Tilt-A-Whirl. I turned around to the window again to see that the sun was starting to set, casting the room in an orange glow. I hadn’t noticed it earlier; I was too focused on Lucas and Amador. Long shadows stretched out toward me, and darkness filled my vision. I shook my head. I could feel it. The darkness spread inside me.
I was changing, and I couldn’t stop it. I was running out of time. I needed to get the iron…
I stumbled for the manacles, but my knees gave out, and I hit the floor. My blood roared in my ears, drowning everything out, and I tasted bile.
The manacles lay inches away from me. I grabbed for them but missed with clumsy fingers.
I barely managed to slide the manacles over my wrists, though I couldn’t clasp them. I didn’t have control of my hands anymore; they’d gone numb.
“Magkandado,” I gasped, desperate, but I knew it wouldn’t work. The manacles weren’t secure. They wouldn’t lock. “Magkandado,” I said again, even as darkness gripped me in its claws and dragged me under.
11
The nextmorning,I woke on the floor of my room.
Bright sunlight poured in from the windows, beaming down on top of me like a spotlight, and I thought I was still dreaming. It was so warm and safe. But when I finally opened my eyes, the first thing I saw were the manacles lying beside me, unlocked. Last night crept back into my mind. I didn’t get them on in time; I had changed. And I had escaped.
I dragged myself up and looked around.
My room was a mess. The bed was stripped of all its sheets, the pillows clawed to shreds, and feathers littered the floor. The privacy screen lay on its side; my wardrobe was scattered all over the room. A fist-sized hole had been punched into the vanity mirror.
I didn’t remember doing any of this.
The balcony doors were still open, letting in a gentle breeze.
Last night came back to me in bits and pieces like a dream—the feeling of flying, the smell of fear, the taste of…I looked at my hands. They were covered in blood, sticky and dark and cold.
I scrambled to my feet and went to the bathroom to wash myhands, but there I saw the missing sheets from the bed had been stuffed into the tub, completely covered in blood. The floor, too, was smeared in it, but it looked like I had tried to clean it up in a semiconscious state. There was so much blood. Too much.
“Please tell me I didn’t hurt someone,” I whispered.
When I glanced at myself in the mirror, I half expected to see that monstrous face, but it was only me. Pale, exhausted. A scared girl.
I turned on the faucet to soak the sheets with cold water, but it only made them worse. I scrubbed at the sheets with soap, trying to get out the stains, but they weren’t worth saving. The harder I scrubbed, the worse it got. The water became a horrible shade of pink, and the air smelled like iron. I sat on the edge of the tub and stared at the mess I’d made.
I knew I had killed something and eaten it. I could feel it in me—a satiated hunger that didn’t feel like it belonged to me. It belonged to something else. And it would be hungry again.
I tried not to cry. It was getting worse.Iwas getting worse.
I left the sheets in the tub and scrubbed the blood off my hands before I went and tidied my room. What clothes I hadn’t torn to shreds last night in a blind rage I put back into my luggage, and the rest I threw in the tub with the ruined sheets. Everything was going to have to go. Most of the clothes Jinky had packed for me were rags now. What was left were some of my T-shirts from the human world that I wore to sleep, a few Maria Clara dresses, and a couple pairs of jean shorts. It wasn’t the wardrobe of a queen, but it would have to be enough.
I chose a T-shirt-and-shorts combination and tied my hair up into a ponytail as I rushed out the door. When I did, voices were coming from down the hall. I’d heard them before they saw me.
“—a winged monster, that’s what he said!”
“A stable boy? How do we know he’s not lying?”
“He sounded convincing enough!”
They were a pair of laundry maids, both of them carrying stacks of clean sheets and walking toward me.
My stomach dropped when I realized they were headed to my room. I put on a tight smile and stood in front of my door. “Good morning!”
The laundry maids jumped when I greeted them. They clammed up, quickly curtsying. Their eyes went round, and their faces paled. “Your Majesty! We didn’t recognize you.”
“Sorry!” I said, a little breathless. “I didn’t mean to startle you.”
“Not at all, Your Majesty,” the maid with her pink hair tied into a long braid said.
