by Cynthia Hand
“Sire,” said a soft voice. He glanced up. Gracie was holding a cup of something out to him. He took it. It was hot, steam curling off the top. It warmed his hands.
“Please say this isn’t one of Gran’s potions,” he said.
“Only one way to find out,” she replied.
He took a sip.
Tea. No milk or sugar, but tea, all the same.
“Thank you,” he said. “You’re perfect—I mean, it’s perfect. Thank you.”
“Well, that’s what the English drink in times of crisis, I hear.” She lifted her arms over her head and stretched, then yawned, then smiled. “We Scots prefer whisky.”
He was too tired to smile back properly. He drank the tea slowly, savoring the heat that filled his belly. He felt his shoulders start to relax.
“You really love her, don’t you?” Gracie asked him as she took the empty cup from his hand. “Jane.”
“Yes, I love her,” he said. “We’ve known each other all our lives.”
He was about to say something more, about how Jane was like a sister to him, that kind of affection between them, but then he heard a mad, joyful little bark, and Pet was on him.
The dog wiggled and danced all over him, whining and whimpering and yipping, her tail wagging like mad. He grinned and tried to pet her, but she wouldn’t hold still. It was only when she started to lick his face that he remembered that there was a girl someone in there, a person, and he sobered and tried to get to his feet.
“Someone’s happy to see you,” Gracie remarked.
“Uh . . . yes,” he said. “Down, Pet. Down.”
There was a flash, and she was a naked girl.
“Your Majesty,” she said earnestly. “I am so glad to see you. I followed your scent all the way here, and I thought I’d lost it once, but I found it again. I would have come more quickly, but you told me to protect Jane, so I stayed with them.”
He resisted the urge to say “good girl” and pat her on the head. “Well done, Pet,” he said instead. “You did well to stay with Jane.”
He would never get used to Pet being a naked girl. Her hair was long and thick and it fell over her in all the needed places, but it still shocked him every single time.
He wasn’t the only one. Gracie was standing there with her mouth open. It was the most taken aback he’d ever seen her. He would have laughed if the whole situation weren’t so completely uncomfortable.
“So, Pet,” he said, and cleared his throat. “I’d like you to meet Gracie MacTavish. Gracie, this is Petunia Bannister, my . . . er . . .” Bodyguard felt like the wrong word. Protector seemed unmanly. Companion could be taken the wrong way. “Watch . . . person,” he settled on finally.
Pet cocked her head to one side and stared at Gracie. Then she sniffed the air. “Fox,” she deduced, her nose wrinkling in disgust. “So you’re the one I smelled.”
“Charmed, I’m sure,” Gracie said wryly.
In a flash, Pet was a dog again. She crouched next to Edward’s feet, gave Gracie a baleful stare, and then growled low in her throat.
“I’m sorry,” Edward said, mortified on so many levels. “She’s never been too fond of strangers.” He bent to admonish the hound. “Gracie saved my life, Pet. She’s my friend.”
Pet laid her head down on her paws and sighed heavily.
He glanced up to find Gracie staring at him. “What?” he asked. “I know it’s a bit unconventional, but her family has been serving the royal line for generations, apparently, and I only knew she was an E∂ian a few weeks ago, I swear.”
“Is that what I am? Your friend?” Gracie asked.
“Of course,” he said.
“Because I saved your life?”
“Yes. I mean, no. I mean—” He didn’t know which answer she wanted. He paused to collect himself. “Do you consider me your friend?”
Gracie shook her head. “I don’t know what to consider you, Sire.”
His teeth came together. “Edward,” he corrected.
Pet growled again. He frowned at her, and she fell silent.
“Is there anything else I don’t know about you?” Gracie asked. “Any more surprises we have in store?”
There was so much she didn’t know about him, he thought, that he would like her to know. But he answered, “No. I think that’s it.”
“All right, then.” She gave a little bow. “Your Majesty. Pet. I must take my leave for now. Your granny has asked me to procure some items for her, and I cannot refuse the old lady.”
“Procure, as in steal?” Edward asked.
Dimples. “It’s best not to ask too many questions, Sire. You worry yourself about your Jane. Leave me to my own devices.”
Your Jane. He settled back into his spot against the wall. Your Jane, like Jane belonged to him somehow, and had that been an edge in Gracie’s voice when she said it? Like she was jealous? Like she wished that she could be his Gracie?
He could only hope.
“She’s going to live,” Gran announced sometime later, startling Edward from where he was most definitely not sleeping. “She’s asking for you. I’ve put her in your bed, as it’s the most comfortable in the keep. Don’t wear her out with talking. She’ll heal quickly, but she needs rest.”
He told Pet to stay, and ran all the way up the stairs.
Jane was sitting propped up with pillows. She looked tired, and vaguely ill, with lavender circles under her eyes and her lips pale as chalk, but she smiled at him bravely.
“You’re alive,” she felt compelled to point out again.
“So are you,” he replied, sitting down carefully next to her. “We’re miracles, you and I.”
“I’m a ferret,” she said like she was confessing a great sin that she wasn’t sorry for.
“I noticed that, too. I’m a kestrel. Pleased to make your acquaintance. And it would be rather splendid, except that when I fly I seem to lose my brain. I’m working on it. Flying should be useful, when I can control it more. I can fly ahead and scout. Spy on people. I can’t wait to spy on people. Just think of all the dirt I’ll dig up.”
She fingered the edge of the scratchy linen sheet. “That’s wonderful.”
“So we’re E∂ians,” he said jubilantly. “At last!”
She smiled again, but her heart wasn’t in it. She was still hurting, he thought. He took her hand. “Janey. You’re going to be all right now. Gran says so, and you dare not defy Gran.”
“I’m fine,” she said. “Well, I’m going to be fine. I promise.”
He glanced out the window, where the sun was making its descent in the sky. “It will be dusk soon, and your husband will return. Promise him, too.”
“How is he?” she asked in a wavering voice. “Is he very angry with me?”
“Why would Gifford be angry?”
“He told me to stay behind when he went into the tavern. But I went in anyway.”
Now there was a big surprise.
“He’s not angry. He’s worried about you, of course,” Edward answered. “Does his breath smell of hay? I often wondered.”
Jane smacked him, then winced. “We had a fight, when I became queen. Dudley wanted me to make him king, as an equal, but I refused.”
“Smart girl, I’d say. I think he’s forgiven you,” Edward said.
It was undeniable, the way Gifford felt about Jane. The man had been in agony at the thought of losing her. His love had been like a light burning in the room last night, clear to anyone who saw it, from the look on his face when he thought she might be dying, to how he’d paced the room and fretted about her those long hours before she’d become a girl again. Edward had not been able to stop thinking about the way Gifford had held Jane’s hand to his cheek and kissed it. Edward hadn’t ever known that depth of feeling. Not romantically, anyway.
Gifford loved Jane. And judging by her face when she talked about her husband, Jane loved Gifford, too. They loved each other. Even if they hadn’t admitted it to themselves yet.
&
nbsp; Edward smiled.
Maybe there was going to be a happy ending to this story, after all.
TWENTY-THREE
Jane
“The key to changing to your animal form,” Gran said, “is to know your heart’s desire.”
Right, Jane thought. My heart’s desire.
It was late afternoon, and Jane, Edward, and Gifford were standing just off the worn path that ran around the ruins. The keep lifted high above them, blocking the worst of the sun’s glare and casting heavy shadows over the piles of fallen stone and the thick green grass. Gran stood opposite them, while Gracie circled the group with a stern expression on her face, her arms crossed over her chest.
Jane had a headache.
“Be honest with yourself,” continued Gran. “If, in the moment you want to change, you do not know why you want to become a bird or ferret or horse—”
Gifford snorted. He was a horse already.
“—or human, then you will stay exactly as you are.”
“What about curses?” Jane asked.
“What about curses?” A pungent, garbage odor slipped into the air, making Jane cough at the sour taste in the back of her throat. Gran had never been very patient, and the more annoyed she became, the worse she smelled.
“How are we supposed to control our changes if we’re cursed?”
“What makes you think you’re cursed?”
“Gifford spends his days as a horse and his nights as a man. Every day, without fail, he changes.” Jane used to blame him for his struggles. She’d thought of him as undisciplined. Now she had a bit more sympathy. “And, for the time being, anyway, I spend my nights as a ferret.”
At least she had every night since the Tower. The sun went down, and flash—Jane was a ferret, whether she wanted to change or not. It was a problem. The first step, she thought, was admitting it.
“That’s why we’re here.” Gran’s odor grew stronger. “Because you lot need to learn to control yourselves.”
“Isn’t the point of a curse that it can’t be controlled?” Jane gestured toward Gifford, who’d bent his head to nip at the grass. “We need to break the curses first, and then learn how to control the change.”
“That sounds reasonable,” Edward said. “Good thinking, Janey.”
“That sounds stupid, if you ask me,” Gracie said, staring flatly at Jane. “You’re not cursed. You’re just stubborn.”
“Gracie’s right.” Gran let out an aggravated sigh. “You’re not cursed. There’s something in you making you want to change when you do.”
“Well, changing because of the position of the sun definitely sounds like a curse to me,” Jane argued.
“Me too.” Edward frowned. “I think it’s likely that Gifford was cursed, and Jane, you got this curse because you married him. Which means this is partially my fault. I’m so sorry.”
Jane touched Edward’s arm, consolingly. “It’s not your fault.”
Gifford gave another loud snort, and something large and ploppy dropped from his hindquarters. He never had the best manners in his horse form.
Jane smoothed down the edges of her borrowed dress. The cut and colors were decades out of fashion, but that sort of thing had never bothered her. She was just grateful to have something more dignified than trousers. Then again, Gracie had made trousers look like the most fashionable things a woman had ever worn. Edward certainly seemed to appreciate the view, from the way he kept gazing at her with his mouth open.
She was almost embarrassed for him. Really.
“You both must have a reason to change with the sun,” Gracie said.
“That’s right,” Gran agreed. “It’s a matter of the heart, like I was saying. When you truly want to control your forms, you will.”
This was all feeling very judgmental to Jane. “How can you say that? No one wants to control their change more than I!”
Gran clucked disapprovingly. “Tell me about when you first changed.”
“It was in my time of great emotional need,” Jane said with a lift of her chin. “Just like in the stories. I wanted to avoid getting my head chopped off. And I wanted to save Gifford from being burned at the stake. So I became a ferret and rescued him.”
“A very noble first change.” Edward smiled her way. “And mine, of course, was wanting to avoid being murdered in my bed. I needed to escape, so I did.”
Gran glanced at Gifford as though she expected him to tell the story of his first change, but he just blew out a breath and gazed toward the field surrounding the old castle, like there were places he’d rather be.
“What about your first change, Gran?” Jane asked.
“One of my maids forgot the fruit with my breakfast. I became a skunk and sprayed her.”
Gracie laughed. “That isn’t true, is it?”
Gran lifted an eyebrow. “Are you calling me a liar?”
“I’m calling you a storyteller.”
“Fine. The gardener killed a rosebush and I found myself agitated.”
“Gran!” Edward said. “Tell us the truth.”
“Ah, the truth is a slippery thing,” Gran said, but then she sighed. “Very well. One of my ladies-in-waiting spent the night with my husband.” She waited a beat to make sure they understood what that meant. “I didn’t find out until court, and there in front of everyone, I transformed into a skunk and sprayed in every direction. I was aiming for my cheating husband, you see, and my traitorous lady. But skunks have poor vision, so I had to guess. I guessed incorrectly a few times.”
Jane choked back a laugh. It was an amusing idea, but that had been a time when being an E∂ian was punishable by death.
That was the time Mary wanted to resurrect. Which was a sobering thought.
“It took me some time to control it, too, at first, if you want to know,” Gran admitted gruffly. “I don’t think I understood my heart’s desire back then. I was ruled by baser things.”
Jane gazed down at her feet for a minute. Was she not being honest with herself? What did her heart want?
“All right,” Edward said. “I’m ready to try.”
“Good.” Gran gave two sharp claps. “No more talk of curses.”
“Close your eyes,” Gracie advised. “Sometimes that helps. Think of what you like about your other form. Think about what you want to do in that form.”
Jane had always been a fantastic student. She immediately closed her eyes and recalled what it was like being a ferret. She’d loved being so useful. The way she could hear and smell everything. And she was quite portable, easily draped over Gifford’s shoulder. There wasn’t a better creature to be.
“I want to be a ferret,” she whispered. “I want to be a ferret.”
“Silently, Jane.” Edward sounded vaguely annoyed. “You’re not the only one trying to concentrate.”
She glanced over at her cousin. He was still too thin, too pale with his recent illness—poisoning, she reminded herself—but he did look better. Stronger. Very much alive.
As she watched, the tension around his shoulders eased. His eyes were closed, and he was smiling as if he were picturing something wonderful.
“Sky,” he murmured.
His light flashed so bright that Jane had to squeeze her eyes shut. She heard the flap of wings. Feathers rustling. When she looked up again, Edward was in the air.
She put her hands on her hips. “How did he do that?”
“Just how we said.” Gracie looked from Jane to Gifford, who was still eating grass. “He wanted to become a kestrel enough. It was his heart’s desire.”
Jane was pretty sure that her heart’s desire was to be a ferret, but here she was. Two legs. Upright. Not enough fur. Eyes decidedly not beady.
She poked Gifford. “What about you? Did you even try?”
He lifted his head and angled for ear scratches.
“Unbelievable!” She stepped back and folded her arms. “Don’t you want to be a man during the day? If it’s all about desire, why do you not desire
to be a man?”
He ignored her and wandered away, seemingly satisfied to be a horse.
Meanwhile, Edward was soaring and diving with abandon back and forth above them, and soon he gave a great hawk-like cry, and vanished over the trees.
“I’d better go after him,” Gracie said. “Looks like he’s caught up in that bird joy again.” Then right there in front of Jane, Gran, and Gifford—who was aiming for a field to run in, not even noticing the ladies anymore—Gracie shimmied out of her trousers and turned into a fox so quickly Jane didn’t have time to protest.
Jane turned to Gran. “Now what?” Edward was a bird and loved it too much. Gifford was a horse and wouldn’t try to fix it. Gracie and Gran could change at will and didn’t see why Jane couldn’t.
Jane didn’t see why she couldn’t change, either.
“Now you try again,” Gran said. “Or I’ll turn into a skunk and spray you.”
She closed her eyes. She imagined herself being a ferret. She put her whole heart into it.
“You’re just making your nose twitch,” Gran said.
“Shh.” Jane pictured being ferret-like.
“Now you’re just crouching.”
Jane sighed, frustrated.
“Did you just meow?” Gran said.
Jane made fists and stomped her feet. She wanted to scream, but she refrained from saying anything except an earnest whisper. “I desperately, desperately want to be a ferret right now.”
But every time she checked, she was still a girl.
Jane was still a ferret when she awakened the following morning.
Because she had turned into a ferret . . . eventually. When the sun fell below the horizon. Just like before.
Gran and Gracie could ignore the evidence all they wanted, but Jane knew better. A curse was a curse.
She was curled up on the pillow next to Gifford’s head. He was snoring a little, so quietly it would have been nothing to her human ears, but her ferret ears were much better and he sounded like a thunderstorm. With a mind to make him stop, she stretched and bumped her nose against his eyelid.
He groaned and waved her away.
