Mistress of the Night - Don Bassingthwaite [85]
"But if Mifano and Velsinore are coming after me, why would I want to run to them?"
"You wouldn't," Julith answered, looking her in the eye. "You need to get back for Mother Dhauna's sake."
Feena's heart sank.
"What's happened?" she asked.
"She let Chandri heal her wounds, but when Velsinore tried to give her the belladonna you prescribed, she refused it. Velsinore tried casting healing magic on her as well, but Mother Dhauna resisted that, too." Julith swallowed. "Then she prayed to Selune herself, asking her to send her brightest light."
Selune's brightest light…
"The light of a full moon?" Feena asked, and Julith nodded. Feena sucked in her breath. "Moonmaiden's grace, she's forced herself to transform into a werewolf!"
CHAPTER 12
Keph watched color spring back into Feena's face. Her jaw shifted in determination. She dropped the gray bundle to the ground and began to loosen the drawstring of her skirt. He stared, then turned away.
It felt very much like he was on the periphery of events. Whatever was happening at Moonshadow Hall didn't involve him. Feena had helped him just by talking to him-but what was he to her? Just a misguided enemy of her faith she'd only met once before. Her real devotion lay with her old friends and her own mistakes.
Something inside him raged at being ignored, just as Strasus and Dagnalla had ignored him, but he fought it down, swallowing the arrogance that had brought him so much trouble.
"Wouldn't she have changed at the next full moon anyway?" he asked over his shoulder.
"The next full moon. A tenday and a half from now. We…" Feena's voice caught. "Moonshadow Hall would have been ready."
"She caught us off guard," said Julith. "The clergy present managed to keep her back, but just barely. She needs your help, Feena. You're the one who knows the most about Iycanthrope. Mother Dhauna was locked in a chamber in the infirmary when I left. She's like a w'ld animal."
"She is a wild animal," Feena said. "That's the chamber I used to be locked in when I changed as a girl. Julith, what are you doing?"
Keph glanced around out of reflex.
Feena was naked. Before her, Julith was also undressing-and swiftly donning Feena's discarded clothes. Keph gulped and looked away again. He heard Feena growl at him.
"Keph, don't be an idiot." "Sorry," he muttered.
He swallowed and turned back around. Under the moonlight, Feena's skin shone like ivory. Her arms and legs were long, lean, and muscular. The moonlight had leeched the color from her hair, turning flaming red into lustrous copper. If Selune herself had stepped down onto that field, she couldn't have chosen a more beautiful, vigorous form. He bit back a gasp and forced his eyes away before he could stare too long.
Julith pulled Feena's blouse down over her head. The other woman's country clothes hung ridiculously loose on her frame.
Julith shook her head in response to Feena's stare and said, "I'm not mad." She reached into her satchel again and produced a slim case of worked silver. "Jewelry and baubles aren't the only treasures in Moonshadow Hall's chests."
She touched the case and it sprang open. Inside, two square vials of crystal wound with silver filigree nestled side by side. The liquid inside them caught the moonlight and reflected it back in a blue-white glow.
"Temple records refer to this as Iraelathe's Escape,"
Julith said, "presented to a High Moonmistress over three hundred years ago by a worshipful devotee. When the vials are replaced in the case and the case placed in moonlight, the potions regenerate themselves with the turning of the moon."
"What do they do?" asked Feena.
"Tonight, they'll help us outwit Mifano and Velsinore." She held out her free hand. "I need three strands of your hair. Wrap them around my finger."
Feena reached up and plucked at her scalp, then twisted fine red hairs around one of Julith's fingers like a delicate ring, carefully knotting the ends so they wouldn't come free,
"Now," said Julith, "you take the potion on the right. I take the