Forever (An Unfortunate Fairy Tale #5)

Mina tried to relax and clear her mind. She could do this—she had to.

She concentrated on her pants, ones from her mother’s trunk. She didn’t really want to change or alter them—she liked them the way they were, but she needed to practice on something. Picturing them as a deep blue instead, she felt Fae power rush to her. Her fingers tingled, and the hair on the back of her arms rose. When she opened her eyes, her pants were blue. She grinned in triumph at Winona.

“Good. But clothes are one thing. Can you change your hair, your face?”

“Why would I want to?”

“What if you had to go into hiding, and your life depended on it?”

“Point taken.”

Winona took a small seashell out of her pocket and waved her hand over it, turning it into a seashell-shaped compact mirror. She opened the mirrored shell and handed it to Mina. “Now try your hair.”

How many times had Mina stared in the mirror at her plain brown hair and boring eyes and wished for something different? But now, given the chance, she wasn’t sure she wanted to change.

“How about blonde?” Mina tried to imagine Nan’s blonde locks on her head. The power came again willingly, rushing to her and almost overwhelming her, but it disappeared just as fast as it came.

Mina held the mirror up to her face and frowned. It was the same face, the same color of hair. “What did I do wrong?”

“Nothing I can tell,” Winona answered. “Try again, just so I can be sure.”

“Okay.” Once again Mina pictured in her mind what she wanted and tried to imagine the color change. This time, she imagined her hair in a braid. She pulled the mirror up a second time and saw her hair in a braid, but it was the same boring brown.

“What’s going on?” Mina asked. “Am I broken?”

“Hmm.” Winona picked up a strand of Mina’s hair and rubbed it between two fingers. “It seems you’re already wearing a glamour, and a very strong one at that.”

“What? That’s not possible. I’ve looked like this my whole life. I have pictures to prove it.”

“Yes, but remember that you’re part-siren and part-human. Your siren side is being suppressed. Maybe concentrate on revealing your true self.”

Doubt flooded Mina. She didn’t know if she wanted anymore surprises. She wasn’t ready to lose more of herself to the Fae world. Her appearance was the one thing that never changed. If she lost that, she’d see a stranger in the mirror. She couldn’t do that.

But then she thought of someone else putting a glamour over her and changing the way she looked, making it so when she looked in the mirror, what she saw was a lie.

That infuriated her. How dare someone alter her, change her, do something to her without her consent? Mina let her anger boil over, felt the onslaught of power, and let it burn outward. She envisioned the lie burning away with siren fury.

The truth!

I want the truth, to see myself for who I truly am. She heard Winona gasp, and Mina looked up and wiped the stray angry tear out of her eye.

“What?”

“It worked.” Winona’s words made her shiver in fear.

“Is it bad?” She felt like a child asking.

Her grandmother covered her mouth, her own tears pouring forth. “No. You’re beautiful.”

Mina’s skin was tinged with gold along her wrists, more obvious than the other sirens’. She raised the mirror, her hand shaking as she held it to see her reflection. Her skin was a pale white, her nose devoid of freckles. Her lips held more color, and her cheeks had a natural rosiness. Her nose and the shape of her mouth were the same, thank goodness.

But her eyes and hair!

Mina’s boring brown hair was longer, fuller, with gold streaks. And her eyes were now filled with glowing flecks of gold. Even her grandmother’s eyes weren’t as bright as her own.

“Oh, how beautiful. Your mother had red accents and marks. But you’re a gold siren—very rare. No wonder your power is so strong. It’s a pity you can’t shift. You’d have a gold tail. You are a gem, Mina. You’re beautiful, and no one can tell you otherwise.”

One more glance in the mirror made her cry in relief. She’d been worried that she’d be ugly. How absurd was that? But wasn’t it a fear of all teenage girls who’d just been told they were part fish? Mina smiled at that.

“Now see if you can change it back,” Winona said kindly.

Mina balked at the idea at first, but she knew it wasn’t a demand. Her grandmother wanted to know if she could. It was so freeing to feel that heaviness and self-doubt gone that she didn’t want to change. But she did it anyway—for her grandmother.

Mina closed her eyes and concentrated. She felt as if she was being suffocated as the glamour fell over her. How had she not noticed this before?

“Good, now don’t be afraid. You can be yourself around us. It’s just a useful tool to know when you go around the human plane.”

It was such an odd conversation. Mina had been living on the human plane for seventeen years, and she was just now learning tools to survive it. She released the glamour and felt the cloying stickiness of it leave her.

Was this what it was like for Ever when she had to hide her wings? No wonder she only hid a part of herself. A glamour was not a comfortable thing to wear.

“Now, I think you have one last thing to work on.”

“What’s that?”

“Power of suggestion.”

She shivered as she remembered the giant. “I’m not real fond of doing that.”

“But you need to, so you can replicate it again.” Winona called out over her shoulder. “Kino!”

Ternan heard his wife call and came over with Kino, who bounded up and paused as he laid eyes on Mina. “Oh, Mother of the Sea, please tell me I can marry her.”

Mina blushed, and Ternan whacked Kino in the arm. “That’s my granddaughter, you sea slug”

Kino blushed and tried to dodge another attack by Ternan.

“Kino, Mina has had a chance to get to know you, and I’d like your permission for her to try and control your mind.”

Kino swallowed nervously. “But we haven’t even courted yet.”

“Kino.” Ternan warned. “He’s just teasing, Mina.”

“Why Kino?” Mina asked them. “You said he was strong. Maybe I should start with someone else.”

“Because he’s strong,” Winona said. “Ternan and I will be here to watch over the two of you.”

“Okay.” Mina looked up at Kino who ran his hands through his dreadlocks, making the water run from them. He crossed his arms and eyed her, challenging her to do her worst.

She looked into Kino’s brown speckled eyes and glanced at the darker brown siren marks across his arms. She met his eyes and tried to command him to clap his hands.

She stared at him, and he just smirked.

“Nuh-uh, sea princess. I’m not so easily controlled.”

That was right. Mina remembered. Giants were relatively dumb and hard to control. A virile young siren, one of the strongest, would be a little harder. She focused on what she wanted and thought she saw his hands flinch, but he just reached up and scratched his arm instead.

Oh bother.

“Have you gotten tired already? Am I too strong?” He flexed his muscles at her, and she grew irritated. “Maybe you need to go take a nap.”