"Beloved?"

"I'm okay," she murmured, lifting her head from the mask. Shekinah wiped the sweat from her forehead and leaned back against the wall, breath unsteady and heart racing. "I'm alive."

"Yes, you are." Wren kissed her on the cheek and embraced her, clutching the very tall, very beautiful, and now very Changed, Shekinah, against her. "But look at your mask."

"What about it?"

Wren reached for it with one hand and held it up while the clay hardened in her hands. In the middle of the impression of Shekinah's forehead was a crescent moon. The expanded Mark on her face, however, Wren would let her discover that change for herself. The sapphire blue tattoos glowed against her sun-kissed umber skin, and for a moment, she was certain it hadn't been Shekinah kneeling there with the mask against her face but Nyx herself.

"I feel strange," Shekinah said. "It's a good feeling, but—"

"Yes?"

"I'm going to wait till we both share this feeling before I look at my reflection."

"No, you shouldn't have to wait, and we cannot predict when I will Change."

Shekinah rolled her eyes and set the death mask aside. She lifted Wren onto her lap and peppered delicate kisses over her lips and down her neck, till she came to the swell of her breasts. "I already know when."

"How?"

"Nyx told me." Wren's laughter sounded like music. "I would not lie about such a thing."

Wren snorted. "I did not insinuate such a thing."