Sophia Vale stopped in front of me. Up close she was more striking than she had been across the Hogsby dining hall or through an office window. The kind of person who occupied space differently from everyone around them. Not aggressively. Just completely.
She looked at Toddy on the floor. Then at me.
[Shapeshifting used against you.]
I assembled the pieces in real time.
Azure had called me by my full name. Abram Nadez, in a classroom where she had offered nothing but guarded warnings. Sophia Vale had no reason to know me. Not like that.
"Azure," I said quietly.
The illusion shattered. Sophia's elegant features melted away like wax under flame. Blue skin flooded back in, followed by the bright pink hair and matching pink eyes.
Azure now stood exactly where Sophia had been a second earlier, caught mid-act with the expression of someone who had almost gotten away with something dangerous.
