“No pain this time,” said Oren, smiling in that reserved way of his.
Ilsa padded over to the mirror, a thrill of success rushing through her at what she saw. The menagerie snow leopard Ilsa had seen in the flesh was no larger than a dog. The beast looking back at her was twice the size at least, and built to kill.
She sat back on her hind legs, extended her claws, and took a vicious swipe at the air. She could feel the weight of her paw, the power of the strike. If she had to fight for her life again, she would be ready.
“You must practise,” said Oren as she shifted human again. “Do not let your grasp of the animal grow stale.”
“I won’t,” Ilsa promised, beaming. “Thank you. That mean you practise a snow leopard too?”
Oren took his glasses from his pocket again and began polishing them. It appeared to be a force of habit. “I practised a great number of animals for a great number of years. I practised until the forms were stuck in my mind and my muscles.”
“Can you do reptiles?” Ilsa said eagerly.
“An unimpressive lizard or two,” he said with a small smile. “I believe Eliot can accomplish a serpent. The marine science faculty of Lenarth College are known to swim the Thames as dolphins two Fridays a month.”
Dolphins. Ilsa had always suspected she could push her magic that far, if only she knew the form better. If it took the knowledge of a marine scientist, she probably never would, but now that she was in the Witherward, surrounded by other Changelings and their wondrous talents, so much more was possible. She felt a buzz of excitement and awe; of pride in her magic.
But the feeling was followed by the memory that there were those who reviled what Ilsa and her people could do. Who believed the Changelings to be base and beneath them for the shape their magic took.
Oren must have seen the dark direction of her thoughts in her expression, as he looked at her quizzically.
“Cassia told me ’bout the Fortunatae. ’Bout the night my parents died,” she explained. Her bones hurting from her poor attempts at shifting, Ilsa sank down, her back against the wall. “She said you was the one what took me to Lord Walcott.”
Oren smiled wistfully. “The last one of us to see you for seventeen years,” he said. He shot an unsettled look at her fine dress, then at the chairs against the far side of the ballroom. He gestured at them. “Would you not prefer a chair?”
Ilsa smirked. These rich people were awfully proper, and she would have been lying if she said it didn’t tempt her to scandalise them. “I’m perfectly comfortable, thanks.”
“Well. Alright.” He went to the far wall and returned with a chair for himself, the exact position of which he fussed with fastidiously before sitting down.
“I had been a wolf for less than a year, but I would have done anything for your mother. I owed her a life debt, and that night she gave me the chance to repay it. I hope she died trusting that I did. Trusting that you were safe.”
The truth of what happened to Ilsa’s safety in the years that followed hung between them, unspoken. “What happened that you owed her?”
Oren laced his fingers together, unlaced them, laced them again. For a long moment he was silent and contemplative.
“I’m not from this starsforsaken city,” he said eventually.
“You ain’t?”
Oren shook his head. His fingers continued to fidget. “I came from Brema. It was a city a two-day voyage from here, to the northeast. I believe on the world map you know, Brema would fall somewhere in Denmark, if that’s helpful.”
The things Ilsa didn’t know about the Witherward were becoming a source of headaches, and she hadn’t even begun to contemplate geography, but she nodded all the same.
“You said Brema was two days’ voyage from here?”
“I did. The city was not built to suffer earthquakes,” he said. “Most of it is in the sea now. The rest is ruin. That was the year my parents brought me to London. I was a little younger than you are now.”
Ilsa screwed up her face. “They came here on purpose?” she said.
“London was founded to be a utopia,” he said. “Five magical peoples living in harmony. We heard tales of the experiment’s dramatic failure, of course, but we did not understand the extent. There was a war going on in Brema at the time, and my mother and father believed London would be better. That there would be real opportunities to build their fortune here.”
A shadow crossed Oren’s face, and Ilsa knew what she had to ask. “What happened to them? Your parents?”
Oren sighed. In different circumstances, Ilsa would have mistaken it for a sigh of contentment. “We had paid a fair price for passage from Brema. High, but fair. But it was a cheat. When we docked in London, the captain told us we owed him more. Much more than we had. He brought a Sorcerer named Lazaro Tilley on board and told us Lazaro would buy our debt, and we would work for him until it was paid. My mother and father tried to refuse, but we were given no choice. They kept us on the ship until they relented. So we became indentured servants.” Oren spared her a weak smile. “But at least we were together, my father would say.”
Ilsa tried to smile back, but it felt false.
“Lazaro was an antiques dealer. He would buy
