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actually
remember
his original question. “I’ve never actually held either a full or a partial change for any great length of time. I could probably hold a hair color change for three or four days if it’s continuous, but it’ll wear me out physically. If I simply revert back to my natural color once I’m home, it might be a little more sustainable.”
    “Then do it.”
    “What? Now?”
    “There are no cameras in this immediate area, and no one nearby. And it is infinitely better to be safe than sorry.”
    I nodded a little reluctantly. Face-shifting wasn’t as easy as shifting into an alternate form. From what I’d been told, donning your wolf form—or whatever other form of animal you might be—involved little more than reaching into that place inside where the beast roamed and releasing the shackles that bound her. Face-shifting was a little more complicated. Not only did you have to fully imagine all the minute details of the face you wanted to copy, but you had to hold it firm in your thoughts while the magic swirled around and through your body. Easier said than done when the magic was designed to sweep away sensation
and
thought.
    Of course, I was only changing my hair color, but given how little I face-shifted, even that wasn’t a walk in the park.
    I flexed my fingers, then closed my eyes and pictured my own face—from the lilac of my eyes, the slight up tilt of my nose, and my defined cheekbones, to the fullness of my lips. But instead of shoulder-lengthsilver hair, I imagined it black and with a pixie cut. A black so rich that it shone dark purple in the sunlight.
    Then, freezing that image in my mind, I reached for the magic. It exploded around me, thick and fierce, as if it had been contained for far too long. It swept through me like a gale, making my muscles tremble and the image waver. I frowned, holding it fiercely against the storm of power. The energy began to pulsate, burn, and change me. My skin rippled without altering, but my hair suddenly felt shorter and somehow finer. As the magic faded, I staggered a little, my knees suddenly weak.
    Azriel caught my arm and steadied me. “Does it always affect you like that?”
    “It’s usually worse.” I shrugged, locked my knees in place, then gently pulled away from the strength of his touch. “I’m told it gets easier with use, but I just don’t use it often enough.”
    “So it will become easier as the weeks pass?”
    “I don’t really know.” I eyed him for a moment. “Do you really think I’ll need to hold it that long?”
    “Until we know who is behind the attack—and why—then, yes, I think it very likely.”
    “Fabulous.”
Not
. I ran a hand through my hair—my now
short
hair. It was an almost surreal sensation, but one I’d have to get used to on a semipermanent basis, apparently. “Will changing my hair work if I’m still riding the same bike and working in the same place?”
    “As I said, the Ania are precise hunters. A motorbike is not a unique object, and it could be anyone under the helmet. Sending them after a particular facial image is far safer.” He shrugged. “But we’ll know soon enough.”
    I grimaced. “Hopefully, Jak will come up with something interesting tomorrow, because I really don’t want to be sitting around waiting for either my father to contact me or to be attacked.”
    “We have little other choice.” Frustration briefly edged his voice. “Where do you go now? To the café?”
    I shook my head. “I’m not scheduled until tonight. I thought I’d go see how Tao is faring.”
    “He still lives.”
    I grimaced. “Being in a semi-coma and living a fully functioning life are two very different things.”
    And right now, Tao was still doing the former rather than the latter. He could swallow food and water, but there was little response to stimuli, and no sense that he was aware of our presence. No one knew when—or if—he was ever going to come out of it. Even the witches at the