My dreams of freedom were crushed when Wyll discovered what had Dannie and I had done.

For a few blessed days I had been almost happy, looking forward to our escape. But Dannie went away, perhaps forever, and left me to my fate. I know he did not have a choice, but it was a bitter thing to watch him go. Once again, I felt empty, and this time I knew to fear that emptiness. Without the outlet of wildness or anger, I had nothing.

I still could not sort out what I felt for Dannie. I did not know if it was love, but I wanted him to be mine.

I knew our parting had broken his heart. You think me vain to say it, but it is not vanity. It is simply a truth. At first, Dannie's love for me had confused me; then, it had given me hope of freedom. At last, when finally what was between us crested and broke over us in a wave of passion, it gave me something more, something I still cannot describe all these years later. His love for me satisfied something deep within me that I had not known I longed for.

In the end, I had kept my secret from Dannie. In the days following his departure, it happened again and again. I avoided the bath, favoring hasty morning washes with a rag and a basin instead, and even so, the touch of the water raised scales along my legs and caused my fingers to connect with hideous webbed membranes.

I could not help but connect this part of me, this unnatural part, to my mother, that mysterious woman who had never seemed to be wholly a part of our world.

Was it her mark in me, those transformations? I had never seen her change in such a way. But, thinking back, I realized that I had never seen her in her bath. I recalled the long-ago day when she and I had sat in my music room, each of us weeping, and my mother had stared out at the rain with her broken heart glittering in her eyes.

No one knew. No one knew what I was. Even I did not know the truth of it. And now that Dannie was gone, I wished I had told him. Had there ever been a person with whom to share my dark secret, it would have been him. There was no hope of unburdening myself to him now. Dannie could not write. I knew not to expect a letter, and I did not know where to send one if I were to write to him.

I turned my attentions inward again. I was too afraid to rebel against my brother's laws, for the threat of being sent to live in Oranslan still hung over me. I sank again into a gray depression. I was resigned to whatever fate life would see fit to grant me.

At least this time I had an outlet in my music. Mother had taken my music from me for a time, but I vowed that I would never permit it to be taken again. I played with more passion and feeling than I ever had, and Dannie's face lingered in my mind through every song.

When Wylliam came to me one day and said, "Agnes, you are to be married," I felt nothing but the gray.