I end up wearing my regular clothes. Queen Irine's forehead creases with disapproval when she sees me. "Was there something wrong with the dress, Lily?"
I shrug. "It just wasn't me."
Her frown deepens.
I give her my sweetest, sickliest smile.
The rainforest is alive with lights and music. Ta-mamau is pretty much a city of tents. There are tents in the trees, where people sleep and eat. There are bigger tents on the ground - they serve as gathering places. The tents come in light colours: light green, pink, yellow, purple and blue. Candles burn inside, giving the impression of giant glowing slugs.
The community has turned out to welcome Addy back. It's an animated crowd, lots of laughing and dancing and eating. Drummers send beats reverberating through the heat. I look for my coolness charm. It's currently hovering over my left shoulder, a shimmering peppermint-coloured hummingbird that flits around my torso breathing clouds of icy mist onto my skin. The home planet of the witches, Phaedra, was a cold place. It's why witches don't do well in the heat.
Onyx is peering inside every cauldron of frog soup. He turns to Addy after the fifth one. Spotted frog, he announces triumphantly. I knew you would not disappoint me, Adamantine.
"There's sautéed beetle too," Addy reminds him. "It's one of my favourite dishes. It's served with singing mushroom sauce. And don't forget the grilled snake. It's really good."
Addy and Onyx stuff themselves with this delicacy and that, chattering enthusiastically about tastes and textures. I'm just trying not to throw up in the bushes.
I'm hovering over a cauldron of something that looks promisingly normal when I see a pair of mournful green eyes watching me from the shadows outside the clearing. A curl of auburn hair burns in the dark.
Before I can say anything, both have been yanked back into the shadows. I shrug and turn back to inspecting the contents of the cauldron. "Addy, what's in this one?'
"Spider curry."
I feel my face going green. I almost ate that.
"You know what," I say, "just give me a mikau berry or two."
I'll live on mikau berries the whole holiday. There's nothing wrong with that.
Addy hands me one of the big purple berries and takes a bite into another one. "Me and Lima loved these when we were little," she says. "We used to have competitions to see who could bring back the biggest one."
I cast a furtive glance in Queen Irine's direction. She's taking a goblet of some bright yellow drink from one of her guards.
"She didn't hear it," Addy assures me. "But I can't just forget about Lima because Hami doesn't like to talk about her."
Madelima was Addy's younger sister. She died when she was three and Addy was six.
"I wish I could talk about her with Hami." Addy fiddles with the mikau berry. Its green insides stain her fingers. "I loved Lima too. We all did. That's why I don't want to forget about her."
Your mother's grief is a different shape to yours.
Onyx has come up beside us. His face is stained with frog soup.
Addy rests her head on his back. "I wish Lima was still here," she says, the sadness plain on her face.
I don't know what to say. What's the right thing to say to something like that? Lima can't come back. She's dead.
Onyx regards Addy with sad black eyes. Dead does not mean gone, Adamantine.
Addy gives him a weak smile.
I put an awkward hand on Addy's shoulder. I'm still trying to find the right words, but Addy puts her hand over mine. She understands.
"Let's go talk to Bronna," she says.
Bronna is Queen Irine's personal guard, and she shares her dislike for me. I don't argue though.
Bronna's sitting in the shade of a palm tree, nibbling on a blue mushroom that seems to be emitting music.
"Oh! A singing mushroom." Addy sidles up beside her. "I thought we only had the sauce."
Bronna continues to munch. "I like to eat them raw. Hamima let me keep a few."
I'm hanging back, watching the mushroom warily. "It isn't ...sentient, is it?"
Addy giggles. "Of course not, Lil."
Bronna's snapping brown eyes catch sight of me. She frowns. "You're the outsider," she says. "Lily."
"That's right."
She regards me with the same wariness I showed the mushroom. Her eyebrow goes up at the sight of my simple skirt and top. "Was there only one gown?"
"Lily's not used to snakeskin," Addy tells her. She, of course, is resplendent in a gown of silver scales.
"I suppose you prefer your city clothes." Bronna throws the rest of the mushroom into her mouth. It goes out with a series of deep, bellowing notes. "It makes sense. We prefer our own ways over that of outsiders."
"Addy!"
The girl with the long black hair, the one who'd run up to us when we arrived, pops up in front of us. "You look beautiful," she says, touching one of Addy's butter-yellow curls. "Are those snake charms in your hair? They're wriggling around like real snakes."
"Ivy," Bronna snaps.
The girl flinches. "I was just saying hello," she says in a small voice.
"The sharima has important business to attend to. Go and play elsewhere."
The girl, Ivy, hangs her head. "Can I go looking for glochas?"
"Not at this time of night. You could lose your way. I can't have you wandering into the forbidden place by mistake."
I nudge Addy. "What's in the forbidden place?"
"A heart thief," Ivy pipes up excitedly.
Bronna ushers her away. "Sharima has things to do. No going outside the settlement at night. And what's that in your hair?"
"Hami said I could wear charms..."
Bronna continues to admonish her until they're out of sight.
Did you say that Ivy was Bronna's younger sister? Onyx asks Addy.
"That's right. Ivy goes to school in the village. She's picked up a lot of outsider ways, and Bronna doesn't like it."
Onyx washes his paws. She really doesn't like outsiders.
"Don't be too hard on her, Onyx. She was the one who found Lima that day. She had to watch the councillors in Zilitron scoff at our reports of a new sickness."
The snake sickness.
Addy nods. "We've kept to ourselves since the Dark Ages, to be honest. We were the first to raise the alarm about the Dark Witch, but no one believed us. She burned our homes to the ground, and they still didn't believe us."
"I thought you didn't believe in witches," I say, surprised.
"Oh, the Mamauri have always believed in witches, though it isn't something you go around advertising in Zilitron. It's not that I didn't believe in witches, it's just that I didn't believe that you were one, Lily. Witches are supposed to be...well, bad."
I flinch. Bad. I'm supposed to be bad. I'm the last in a line of witchy reincarnations, and we've all ended up bad.
Onyx looks up from his grooming. What is that on your shoulder, Adamantine?
"Oh!" Addy plucks a fat, translucent blue slug from her shoulder. "It's a glocha. They're all over the place here. Hey there, little guy. Aren't you just the cutest?"
I've taken a few steps back. "Addy, that thing is not cute."
"Of course he is," Addy croons, tickling the little monster under its chin.
I regard it suspiciously. It grins at me with crooked grey teeth.
Perhaps next time we can have glocha soup, Onyx suggests.
Addy giggles. "With singing mushrooms!"
They both laugh.
I miss the days when Addy couldn't hear Onyx. They couldn't gang up on me then.