The question caused Eibhlin’s breath to catch. Waste? Everything to waste? Of course not! She had to come to this dreadful place precisely because she didn’t want to waste all her time and effort and pain. She couldn’t let it all be meaningless. Eibhlin glared at the Witch. “Okay,” she said. “You have a deal.”

The radiance on the fairy’s face made Eibhlin’s heart sink, but there was no chance to take back her words. The fairy took a strand of Eibhlin’s hair and gave it a tug. The hair fell back down, and grasped between the fairy’s fingers and thumb was what appeared to be a thin thread of bright sunlight. For the next few seconds, the fairy pulled on the thread, collecting it around her fingers. And as the thread around the fairy’s fingers increased, Eibhlin noticed the color disappear from the tip of what hair she could see, like the unfurling rows of a knitted shawl, leaving translucent white. When at last the fairy finished gathering the thread, she summoned a small, glass phial, removed the cap, and dropped the thread inside. As soon as it left her fingers, the thread appeared to unravel into sunlight, and the fairy quickly threw on the cap before any of the golden color could escape. The Witch smiled, and Eibhlin immediately felt sorry for whatever soul that phial’s contents would be used for.

Without looking away from her new good, Arianrhod tossed the key in Eibhlin’s direction, saying, “Take it. Now that our business is done, leave. If you just go out the gatehouse door, you’ll exit back at the monastery, but be swift. As my contract with that monk is void, the door won’t remain much longer. Oh, and another thing, be careful with your hair. It’s quite absorptive right now, so the next color it touches for more than five seconds, that’s the color it will be. If you’re fast or lucky, maybe you can even turn it gold again. But remember, it only needs five seconds for it to change, and no second chances.”

Slipping the key on her chain, Eibhlin said, “Thank you” and turned to leave. However, before she had even made it half a pace, the Witch said, “One more word of warning… Watch your step.”

At once, Eibhlin recognized the magic saturating the words, but she could not defend herself fast enough. Her feet caught upon themselves, and she tumbled to the floor. As she got back up, she cursed herself for letting her guard down, and in the middle of her self-reprimand, she thought she heard Mel’s voice echo in her ears as though from far away. Be-fore she could decipher the words, though, intense dizziness struck her, and she fell back to the floor. She felt feverish. Her body ached, and she felt nauseated. Her head throbbed as if trying to crack her skull, and her lungs felt tight.

Mel’s voice came again, this time a cry of anguish.

Eibhlin lay on the floor, miserable and confused. Curling so that she could see the fairy in the other room, Eibhlin glared and tried to speak, but the aching in her head made thoughts and speech difficult.

The Witch laughed. “Child of the sun, do you blame me for your current state? I did warn you, didn’t I? About your hair.”

It was only then that Eibhlin realized she had fallen into a patch of moonlight, and her hair, once soft blond, now brushed against her cheek stark white.

“Still,” continued the Witch, “the color isn’t as pure as it should have been. Must be due to that elven blessing. Maybe it diluted the color, bleached it of some power.”

“You… what did you…?” Eibhlin croaked.

“Hm? Me? Didn’t I already tell you? I did nothing. Well, nothing that wasn’t inevitable anyway. It probably would have changed on the walkway anyway, in that exposed light. Only now, I can actually watch you writhe a bit. Silly mortals and your ‘moonstricken’ state. Oh, and by the way, the deterioration of the gate is still the same. I suggest you hurry before it’s unusable.”

Eibhlin fumed, and the energy of her anger dulled some of the pain, but the fever and nausea would not let her charge after the fairy. It was for the best, really. If she had, she realized later, she would have crossed the last threshold and left herself completely exposed to the Witch’s magic. Instead, she dragged herself to the wall and used it to prop herself up. Scraping against the wall, she made for the door to the walkway.

When she reached the door, the Witch of Hours said, “Goodbye, pitiful child. A delight doing business with you…. Still, it is a shame you cut your hair. The color really was of spectacular quality.”

Eibhlin looked back to see the fairy examining the phial’s shining content. Bracing herself against the door, fingers on the handle, she said in as strong a voice as she could, “You can thank your ‘sentries’ for that. A Tensilkir got tangled in my hair, so I cut it all off, branches and all.”

The enchanted phial fell to the floor, but the sound of its collision and roll across the floor was drowned out by the Witch’s shriek.

“Those idiots!” she screamed. “How could they! They know better! Traitors! Idiots! I have to hurry! The color will already be dying, could be dead. Or the sap! The tree’s sap might have burned it all. No. I must hurry! How could they—”

With the sound of the fairy’s screams behind her giving her some satisfaction, Eibhlin stumbled out to and down the walkway and then out the gatehouse door.