“What are you planning to do with that statue?” she said.
“Hit you with it, what d’you bloody think?”
That didn’t garner much of a reaction, so Ilsa readied herself to demonstrate. The girl came towards her, until Ilsa could see sea-green eyes framed in long, dark lashes, and a distressed crease between them. There was an uncanny sadness about her.
“You are Ilsa Ravenswood, aren’t you?”
Ilsa hesitated, the statue dropping lower. “I might be,” she said. “I think so.”
“But you are a Changeling, yes? The Wraith assured us he saw you shift. In your stage show. Did he not?”
Deny it, said an old instinct. Devil’s get, rang the echo in her head. Tears of the agony her magic had caused were still fresh on her cheeks for this stranger to see, but things were different now. She had seen others like her. She was in a place where they shifted in the streets, unafraid.
“He did see it,” she said carefully. “I can change. It’s just no one’s ever called me Ravenswood. I was Ilsa Mitcham when I was a kid. Ilsa Rose on the stage. Ilsa Brown, if the police ask.” Ilsa’s weapon-wielding arm was growing weary, so she switched, and held the thing aloft with renewed vigour. “And who the hell are you?”
The girl studied her a moment longer, then drifted to the other side of the room and opened those curtains, too. Ilsa pivoted to keep the statue aimed at her.
“We already met, don’t you remember? My name is Cassia Sims. You can call me Cassia,” she said. “I couldn’t sleep thinking what an ordeal you’d had. The Wraith said… your friend was killed.” With the light pouring in, Cassia was looking at her differently. Ilsa realised why, and hastily wiped the moisture from her cheeks. At the mention of Martha, images of her needless death crowded Ilsa’s mind, but she was beyond tears over her friend. The memory was still too biting. Too unreal.
“I was afraid you’d be distressed to wake alone,” Cassia went on, hastening to continue as Ilsa opened her mouth to argue. “Yes, it’s occurred to me now that waking… not alone is itself quite distressing. Forgive me. I hope we can start again.” She unfolded and refolded her hands, fumbling a little, and Ilsa could no longer resist cutting in.
“What is it?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’re scared! What’s happening?” She tightened her grip on the statue, blood pounding, body bracing on instinct for new danger. “What are you hiding?”
“Hiding? No, I—”
“I ain’t stupid! Are you here to stall me? Is someone gonna—”
“I was nervous to meet you,” Cassia said in a rush, volume rising to meet Ilsa’s. Her mouth snapped closed.
Ilsa dropped her arm: it was difficult to be coordinated and dumbstruck at the same time. “Beg pardon?”
The crease between her eyes returned, deeper than before. “You’re Ilsa Ravenswood. You’ve been nothing but a sad story for seventeen years, and now you’re here, and you’re real. And you mean so much to” – she drew a short breath and recollected herself – “to the Zoo. And we waited for Captain Fowler for days. I’ve done nothing but wonder what you were like and what we would say to you and how in heavens we would explain.” She grew quieter the longer she went on, until Ilsa was moving closer to hear. From the moment she’d seen the girl, she thought Cassia might be on the verge of tears, but now it appeared to be true. “I’m honoured to meet you, Ilsa. Thank you for coming.”
Incensed, Ilsa resisted the urge to heft the statue again. “Well I weren’t given much choice!” she snapped. “After my friend was murdered and the man what was sent to find me bound my hands.”
Cassia paused a moment, her mouth open. “You make a fair point. We have a lot to answer for, I know. Let me take you to Hester. It’s early, but… well, she won’t be sleeping.”
Cassia went to the wardrobe and produced a dress – white with a black ribbon at the waist and a high collar. “Let me help you,” she said, unbuttoning the dress, but Ilsa would be damned if she was about to put her back to the girl. Cassia must have inferred this from Ilsa’s sneer, as she tossed the dress over the top of the screen beside the wardrobe and retreated a respectable distance.
“You can put the statue down,” she said. “No one will hurt you here, but should someone try, teeth and claws would be more effective, don’t you think?” That delicate frown line appeared again. The rest of her face didn’t appear to be malleable. “Or perhaps you’re not a strong shifter. Did anyone teach you?”
Ilsa slammed the statue – a marble wolf, she noticed; always wolves, in this place – down on the end table and pulled the dress behind the screen. “I taught myself,” she said through gritted teeth. “And I shift just fine.”
Behind the screen she grappled with the dress, which had obviously been designed for a lady who had a maid to help her. Even a magician’s assistant’s flexibility, a pickpocket’s dexterity, and the magic ability to grow her arms longer would not allow Ilsa to best the endless run of tiny buttons that fastened the back.
“Ilsa,” Cassia said tentatively from very close to the screen, after several minutes had passed and Ilsa’s sighs of frustration hadn’t ebbed.
“Fine!” Ilsa snapped. “You can help.”
Cassia came around the screen. As she fastened the buttons at Ilsa’s waist, the dress magically cinched to fit her perfectly. Once again, Ilsa gasped in alarm.
“I didn’t know what would fit when I ordered things for you, so I spelled all the garments to fit the wearer,” Cassia explained as she worked, though it wasn’t half an explanation enough. “But perhaps you noticed in the clothes you wore last night.”
Ilsa warily turned her head, but she couldn’t read the girl’s expression any more than she could read her tone. Had there been someone
