A/N: Aren't I a good girl, another update so soon? More tomatoes. O-kay. Well then. I've invented some words in this chapter, but hey- unlike a certain ruler of the free world, I know they're made up. I did it on purpose.
Disclaimer: Not mine.
Cass took a deep breath and began.
"I was a spy for the Wizard," she started. Elphaba flared, if a human could be described as flaring, but that's what it was. She seemed to grow taller and simultaneously to hunch over, but loomingly so; she clenched her long elegant hands into claws and her hazel eyes flashed murder; her nose and chin seemed to lengthen and grow sharper, definitively serrating her face. She looked like a harpy or a Fury; the definition of a Wicked Witch, the green avenging angel of justice, as Avaric had said.
"I knew it!" she cried, her voice high and strange. "I knew it! Oh, oh, now; whatever to do with you, my pretty!"
Cass was petrified and Nor frightened by this transformation, but Liir had seen it before and Fiyero had seen his Fae turn vengeful and strange in mere moments before, too.
"Fae, let her speak, give her a chance, she can't hurt us," said Fiyero softly, laying a soothing blue-diamonded hand on Elphaba's arm and, as she seemed visibly to shrink and go from mythological Fury to woman again, he pulled her gently, calmingly, into a half embrace. He turned then to Cass. "Well, go on then," he told her, not unkindly. "How did a girl so young end up working for the Wizard as a spy?"
"Oh, well," she said. "My great-aunt is Madame Morrible, and she is the one who raised me. My grandparents died before I was born, and my parents when I was eight." She turned her silvery gaze on Elphaba, imploring with her eyes rather than her voice, which remained calm and steady. "I was raised in the South, just north of Quadling Country," she said. Elphaba's breath caught in her throat and she reeled back, echoes of a long-ago conversation overwhelming her. The Adept. Of course, the perfect pawn for Morrible's devious schemes and power plays; her own flesh and blood. Not that they ever would have guessed it; Cassia seemed the opposite of her overbearing erstwhile guardian. Cass was nearly ethereal; she was slight, slender and compact, with that light, flyaway, fine red hair and those pale grey eyes. Her voice, too, was light and airy; not like Glinda's but like spring rain, a counterpoint to Morrible's rumbling thunderclouds.
"But I don't want to be a spy anymore," Cass said pleadingly, still staring at Elphaba. The girl held out her hands almost submissively, but the look in her eyes had changed to one of unadulterated defiance. "I haven't been spying on you since you left Glinda's house," she explained. "I've been following you because I wanted to help you, to- to join you."
Liir looked at Elphaba- his mother-, to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were hooded, unreadable, the set of her face defensive.
"Why should we believe you?" asked Elphaba. Cass's voice and eyes betrayed her growing panic.
"Because," she supplicated, spreading her hands wider, "I was only eight when my parents died, and I never knew anything but Aunt Morrible's doctrines. But now," she went on desperately, "now I remember, I realize- my parents didn't believe in this. They tried to help the Animals, they hated my aunt- and I don't want them to hate me, too!"
Something had broken in Elphaba as she listened to the young girl's story, so similar to her own.
"All right," she said at last, "you can stay."