She wasn’t entirely sure why, but she liked to imagine that when she joined herself to a human, she slipped her ethereal tendrils into the crevices of their brain, caressing the silky membrane and attaching herself to them so deeply that when she eventually rent herself from them, she ripped out a chunk of their mind in the process.
The parasite’s eldest sibling hadn’t cared for her habit of discarding her hosts before their life came to a natural end. That was how the parasite had gotten into this mess to begin with.
Still, she had no regrets as she stared down at Madame LeFleur’s pale face.
For starters, the plain girl’s brain actually possessed the capability of processing the Madame’s facial features. Her empty eyes were the color of moss and she had a mole on her upper lip. Her skin was pale rather than tanned.
But one could never tell in pale-skinned humans whether that was a byproduct of their complexion or just being dead.
The parasite would miss certain aspects of her former host, of course. She doubted she’d ever find a mind like hers. One that, when enhanced, proved there was nothing quite impossible as far as chemistry was concerned.
It had been an enjoyable pastime. But pastimes were aptly named. The opportunity to achieve something greater had shuffled through the shop doors, and the parasite wasn’t keen on missing out on it.
The parasite stretched out her new host’s limbs like a cat might unsheathe its claws as it woke from a nap in the sun.
And like a cat, it was time to go strolling in the moonlight.
The parasite stumbled to the door, grabbing first at the counter, then at shelves, to steady herself. It was always a bit of a pain—getting used to a new body, the lankiness or stoutness of the new host’s limbs, the length of their stride, even the rate of their breath as their lungs coordinated with the rest of their body.
The plain girl was of average build. But that wasn’t surprising, since the girl was practically average in everything. Not ugly. Not pretty.
Totally unremarkable, just as the Madame had thought.
But the parasite had known better.
She shook the girl’s head—her head now. What was she thinking, trying to get used to this body? The only reason she’d wanted her was to do, well, this…
It didn’t take long for the parasite to locate the source of the girl’s utmost desire. In fact, it practically leapt out at her, and the parasite had to focus a bit to grasp onto it. It was a bit like trying to contain a fish with wet hands. It flailed and wriggled, but this wasn’t the parasite’s first utmost desire wrangling, and she soon overcame it. Channeled it until it flowed through her, melded with her.
It stung at first, hot and sharp and potent. A bit like taking a brand straight from the fire and delving it into the ribcage.
The parasite reveled in it. Allowed it to consume her.
What they made together was remarkable.
The girl’s legs lengthened, muscles bulking around her slender thighs. Her hips were next, and the parasite cried out in masochistic delight as the girl’s hipbone splintered. It expanded and readjusted, the bone and muscles knitting themselves back together, a smooth layer of fat coating the edges, forming curves the parasite couldn’t have painted better herself.
The girl’s breasts followed. Then her face, her eyes widening, her nose shrinking, her cheekbones lifting. Where lifeless locks had once been, silky ashen hair took its place, cascading over the girl’s slender shoulders in gentle waves.
The blotches on her forearms faded, the blemishes smoothed over and replaced with skin as delicate and pale as Madame LeFleur’s prized porcelain tub.
To be someone different was what the girl had wanted.
Different, indeed, the parasite thought as she reached the door. As soon her fingers touched the handle, an idea plucked at the parasite’s mind. Before leaving, she fetched a vial from the storage closet behind the thick curtain. Painted mandrakes decorated the vial, and the parasite used her new, full lips to smile as she tucked it into the girl’s coin purse.
Then she slipped out of Madame LeFleur’s shop and into the tender embrace of the moonlight.
Moonlight had always been a touchy subject for the parasite, and for good reason. It was the force that both bound her and freed her.
When the parasite’s bleeding soul of an eldest brother had learned what she’d been up to, how many hosts she’d discarded in her quest for adventure, he’d gotten it into his head to punish her.
Punishing a being as ancient as the parasite turned out to be quite the ordeal, so he’d used moonlight to bind the curse.
And cursed she was.
While her siblings had been left free to work their magic anytime they wanted, so long as their hosts allowed it, her brother had harnessed the energy of the full moon to bind her power to it.
Only when the full moon crested the horizon could the parasite draw upon her power, and even then she didn’t get the full full moon. Only until it apexed in the sky.
Her brother hadn’t left her much to work with, though she supposed that, if he could have, he would have locked her power away entirely.
That had been many moons ago.
Her siblings had gotten what was coming to them in the end. When the fae slipped into this realm at the heels of one of their runaway children, it hadn’t taken long for them to hunt down the parasite’s siblings. It hadn’t taken long for the fae to consume them.
None of her siblings had bothered to unbind her in the years prior to the fae’s arrival. Other than her eldest brother, they hadn’t even known what crime she’d committed to be condemned to such a cruel imprisonment. They hadn’t cared. Her eldest brother had commanded them to have nothing to do with her, and they obeyed.
That was just as well, because her banishment had meant that she’d been kingdoms away when the fae consumed her siblings.
Good riddance.
She hoped they’d fractured into mindless, half-life shadows by now, their very sense of being eaten up by how many times they’d been split and severed and passed onto the fae’s offspring.
The parasite found herself skipping down the streets of Othian at the very thought.
The garments the plain girl had come into the shop wearing would not do. They were clean and well-kept, certainly not rags, but on the parasite’s new masterpiece of a body, they might as well have been.
It was a good thing the tailor down the street also held fast to silly superstitions about the full moon and had closed up early. Madame LeFleur had visited him only last week to be measured for a new gown—a frilly pink monstrosity that now sat on display in the shop window, waiting to be picked up.
There were qualities of Madame LeFleur’s that the parasite would miss.
Her affinity for frills was not one of them.
In a past life, the parasite had taken the form of a petty thief, so although the plain girl possessed no such muscle memory, the parasite wrestled with the lock using a set of hairpins from the girl’s pockets.
The door hardly creaked as it opened. Madame LeFleur had mentioned the off-putting noise to the tailor during her last visit, and he must have heeded her advice to have it oiled.
It didn’t take long for the parasite to find the dress. She’d spotted it last week through Madame LeFleur’s eyes, a shimmering blue gown that sparkled like the view one could catch of the night sky a few miles out from the distracting lights of the city.
It was as if the tailor had made it with the parasite in mind.
That was why she’d been so delighted when he’d complained to the Madame that he’d wasted his time and resources making it. The lady of the court who’d paid for it had apparently done so without her wealthy parents’ knowledge, stealing their coin with the intent to commission the sort of gown that would never catch her parents’ approval.
It wasn’t exactly proper.
The neckline plunged almost to the belly button, the waist was practically sheer, and the slit that cleaved the fitted skirt snaked almost up to the hip.
It was perfect.
