Sephia breathed in deep, steadying herself.
She would have obtained the potion she held long before now, but the witch she’d bargained with had insisted that it wouldn’t keep; the initial spell needed fresh blood, and it needed to be used within moments of adding that blood. They had considered taking care of this spell days ago, but the chances of their trickery being detected within their own familiar palace was too great.
So it all had to be done at the last minute, here in the quiet and secret of the forest.
It was not ideal.
Their parents would no doubt have realized they were missing by this point. The procession would be gathering at the palace gates, preparing to head forTala Nofa, that great pavilion edged with fluttering flags and towering statues—a space that stood as yet another monument to the bargain that had been struck over a century ago. They would all be readying themselves for the ceremonialTakingthat would occur there.
The king and queen would be livid over their daughters’ late arrival to such an earth-shatteringly important event. Reasonably so; it was offensive to be late, after all.
And to offend the fae was to risk the lives and limbs of everyone within that royal procession.
But it couldn’t be helped. Sephia had accepted this. They would just have to hurry back and try to smooth things over and minimize the damage.
Quickly, quickly…
Sephia clamped her teeth around the bottle’s cork stopper and yanked. The smell that wafted out was as potent as it had been in that witch’s house—like a cross between horse dung and vinegar with a hint of grass clippings.
She was not looking forward to drinking it.
But she didn’t hesitate. She pulled two small cups and two glass vials from the satchel at her side. Knelt down, placed these things on the partially-frozen ground. Distributed one-fourth of the foul potion evenly between the cups. Yanked the small hunting knife from the sheath hidden at her ankle.
Her blade flew over her palm so quickly, so methodically, that she didn’t have time to flinch.
Blood bubbled up over her skin. She scooped as much as she could into one of the glass vials, and then she wiped the remnants on a scraggly patch of grass, grabbed the still-empty vial, and stood to meet her sister’s gaze.
“Give me your hand,” she said.
Nora hesitated. Not likely from fear; she simply had a habit of taking her time with important things. They had always been this way: Nora was the calm inhale, the bracing breath before the storm. Sephia was the exhale, the wind that stirred the waves and pushed things—often violently— into motion.
And it was Sephia that moved more quickly this time, too. She firmly took Nora’s wrist in her grip and pulled her forward.
Her blade moved as fast as before.
The blood oozed out to be collected. Once she was satisfied with the amount she’d gathered, she shook a drop from each of the vials into each of the cups. They landed with an oddly loudplopinto the liquid.
That liquid spell sizzled. Its scent grew more overwhelming. Sephia held her breath as she grabbed the cups and handed one to her sister.
“Cheers,” Nora said with a nervous little laugh.
They drank.
The forest seemed to grow even more abnormally quiet as the liquid burned down Sephia’s throat.
She blinked, and suddenly the color leached from the trees, from the sky, from the dress Nora wore. Deep shadows stretched over their surroundings—shadows that didn’t seem to follow any normal patterns, that were brought about by something unrelated to the cold sunlight. Sephia closed her eyes, hoping it would all be over with quickly.
When she blinked those eyes open a few minutes later, she was greeted by the sight of…herself.
No, not herself; this was now her sister, somehow.
The spell hadworked.
“Incredible,” Nora whispered, her eyes trailing over Sephia’s transformed appearance. After a moment, her hands reached up and felt along her own altered face. “And I…do I…”
“I put a mirror in my bag—yourbag, now.” Sephia slipped that bag off her shoulder and handed it over. “See for yourself.”
Nora pulled the mirror out, and Sephia stared at Nora as Nora stared at her new reflection. They had never been identical, and as they’d grown older they had resembled each other less and less, and so the changes were difficult to look away from.
