Though, to be fair, I amended to myself, Bran hadn’t done that—hadn’t ignored or belittled me. Under the ugly-spell—or glamour as he had called it—the Suva had cast on him, he had been this gorgeous, tall, muscular Greek god all along. And still he had been kind to plain-Jane me and even offered to take the skink for me. There was definitely something special about him.
But it was hard to concentrate on Bran when Lachlan was looking into my eyes so intensely. It almost seemed like he was trying to stare into my soul. When I blushed and dropped my gaze, he frowned impatiently.
“No, don’t look away, little one—I need to see exactly how be-spelled you are,” he told me.
So I had to stare into those mesmerizing, black-ringed emerald eyes some more. If you’ve ever had to hold eye contact with a stranger for a long time, you’ll know how difficult this was. Staring into someone’s eyes is just so intimate—it’s normally something only lovers do. I could feel my heart pounding and a hot blush creeping into my cheeks. It was all I could do not to drop my gaze a second time.
Also, with Lachlan so close, I couldn’t help noticing that he smelled as good as Bran did—though in a different way. His scent reminded me of the deep woods—a green, growing, wild scent with a dark, dangerous spice just under the surface. It drew me like a magnet, which made me even more uncomfortable because, as I said before, Lachlan was as far out of my league as Bran was, even when I was my normal self—which at the moment I most definitely was not.
Finally, the Dark Fae nodded and stood up.
“All right,” he said to Bran and me. “Do you want the good news or the bad news first?”
“Good news,” Bran said at the same time I said,
“Bad news.”
Lachlan smirked at me, one corner of his lush mouth pulling up into a lazy smile.
“You’re a pragmatic little thing, aren’t you? Very well, I’ll give you the bad news first.”
“Okay…” I clenched my fists in my lap. “Only please don’t say the bad news is you can’t change me back,” I said. “Please—I can’t go to school like this! I need to look like my normal self again.”
“Oh, no—I can change you back,” Lachlan said. “But you’re not just be-spelled by the Suva, which is a relatively easy body-morphing glamour. You’re actually under a geas.”
“A what?” I asked, frowning.
“It’s a kind of curse and blessing at the same time,” Bran explained, frowning. “But how could she be under a geas, O’Rourke?”
Lachlan shrugged.
“I don’t know but it’s a long-lasting one—she’s been under it for years. The Suva latched onto it when she tasted it and now the two spells are entwined. Which means to remove the glamour, I must also remove the geas.”
I didn’t know how anything could be a curse and a blessing at the same time or how I could have been under some kind of spell for years—none of that made any sense to me. The one thing I did know, though, was that I didn’t want to be ugly anymore.
“Okay,” I said to Lachlan. “Take it off—all of it.”
“Are you sure?” He raised one dark eyebrow at me. “The geas might have been placed on you for a good reason. Once I remove it, there’s no putting it back.”
“I don’t care!” I exclaimed. “I just want to go back to my normal self.”
Lachlan gave a short laugh. “Oh, I wouldn’t count on that, little one. The geas has been on you for so long that what you consider to be your ‘normal self’ might be nothing like what you actually look like.”
“What?” I demanded. “What are you talking about? Why can’t you just turn me back to how I was before?”
Lachlan held up his hands in a “don’t shoot” gesture.
“Look, I already explained to you, the glamour of the Suva and the magic of the geas are intertwined. If one comes off, they both come off. And, as we have no way of knowing what you look like without the geas, I can’t promise you’ll look the way you did before you tasted the Suva.”
“But…what if I’m even uglier than I am now?” I asked. “What if I’m some kind of monster or something?”
My eyes began to fill with tears—I couldn’t help myself. This was turning out to be the worst night of my life! How could taking one tiny taste of the purple Suva stuff have brought my whole world crashing down around my ears like this?
“I just…just want to be normal again,” I whispered as tears dropped onto my gnarled fingers. Even my hands were ugly, I couldn’t help thinking. But what if whatever I looked like under the mask I had apparently been wearing all my life was even worse?
“Oh, Emma…” Bran knelt beside the bed and took my hands in his. “Emma, please don’t cry,” he begged me softly. “Whatever you look like when the geas is lifted, you’ll still be yourself inside.”
“I…I know the inside is supposed to be what matters,” I said, my breath hitching in a sob. “But I’m a teenaged girl, Bran. Looks matter. I know they shouldn’t but I can’t help it—they do. I’ve never been a beauty queen but I’ve never been hideous either. I don’t want to stay this way but what if I’m even worse underneath?”
“I don’t think you will be, but I’m afraid it’s a chance you’ll have to take,” Bran murmured gently. “Come on, Emma—you can be brave—I know you can. Where’s the girl who stood up to Morganna Starchild? The girl who had a skink in her ear but didn’t let it stop her from making an A on her History report about that human who made everything out of cashews?” He frowned. “Or was it hazelnuts?”
“It was peanuts,” I said, smiling a bit, despite my tears. “George Washington Carver made everything out of peanuts.”
“I knew it was some kind of nut.” Bran smiled gently at me. “Look, you can do this. And I swear to you, I’ll be with you every step of the way.”
“Promise?” I looked into his gorgeous storm-blue eyes, fringed thickly with dark lashes. “Even if I turn into some kind of monster?”
“Promise,” Bran said firmly, squeezing my hands. “I won’t leave you, I swear it. Just be brave, Emma—I know you can get through this.”
“All right.” I took a deep breath and swiped at my eyes. I looked up at Lachlan. “I’m ready,” I said. “Take the spells off me. All of them.”
30
“All right—this is going to take some doing.” Lachlan had a look of intense concentration on his face. “Stand up for me, little one,” he said to me. “It’s going to take a lot of power to remove this mess you’ve been under for so long.”
I stood on shaky legs and took a step away from Bran’s bed—but only a step. I wanted something soft to fall on if the magic knocked me over. I hadn’t forgotten the magical wind that had buffeted me out in the forest when Bran had first called the Fairy circle.
“Will it take long?” Bran asked, obviously anxious on my behalf.