Shattered Circle by Linda Robertson Page A

cried even as her eyes widened upon seeing her sister’s condition. But it did not stop her or Ailo. Both threw their arms about Liyliy.
    Liyliy also took in their appearances with some grief. Both of them wore iron about their necks like slaves. Giovanni was right; her sisters had been bound.
    Together they cooed and cried, shushed and sniffled as their reunion carried on for a long minute. They clasped hands and Ailo and Talto pushed images into her mind. They told her that in her absence Menessos had bound them to him and had the iron put round their throats. If they tried to transform, it would kill them. They were so angry, so resentful of him . . . but she had returned. She would save them, they were certain. All would be well.
    In return, Liyliy showed them the pocket at her hip, the phones inside. She told them what they were for. “Heal me and take them,” she whispered.
    Embracing tightly, they each drew upon the magic that allowed them to clothe themselves with quicksilver and silk. Fabric flowed around them, between them, entwining and twirling like lovers wrapped in sheets. Liyliy’s sisters began chanting and the fabric liquefied, spilling at impossible angles like gentle silver waterfalls onto Liyliy’s skin.
    All the magical fabric they possessed had flooded around her, leaving them both naked. It flowed outward to create a circle of liquid that encompassed her, then it filled in, growing deeper until it was ten inches of fluid, hovering unbelievably in the air. Her arms lifted and her hair fanned out as if she were floating in an upright pool of mercury.
    Her sisters’ chant became a song.
    As the song continued, the liquid hardened like a gigantic mirror, sealing Liyliy in place. For a moment she seemed dead, frozen, caught in this strange magic. Then her sisters slammed their fists against the glass, pushing through, slicing their own flesh on the shards, and spilling their blood into the spell they were crafting.
    The mirror cracked and shattered in slow motion, each broken piece cascading into sparkling dust, stretching into threads, and weaving into silken bandages that wound Liyliy like a mummy. When she was enveloped, her sisters stood and lowered her vertical body until it lay supine in midair. They each held one of her cloth-covered hands and clasped their free hands together. Still singing, harmonizing in a crescendo rising to angelic soprano notes, they forced the magic to permeate Liyliy. Her body began to glow under the wrapping, shining brighter and brighter until the room was filled with silvery illumination so blinding it seemed the moon had been stolen from the sky and placed in the hands of the shabbubitum.
    All at once, that dazzling brilliance winked out.
    The sisters’ melody dropped into something less divine, something made of deep tones and fast staccato notes. Liyliy’s body began to spin between them,the fabric unwinding and splitting in two, part sliding around Talto, part around Ailo.
    When Liyliy was unwrapped, she stood.
    The almost sentient material had reclothed each of them, with the phones hidden within the folds of their new silken gowns. With tears shimmering in her eyes, Talto held up her hand. The sleeve of her dress formed a hydrous mirror along her palm so Liyliy could view herself.
    Her skin was no longer blistered, the globules on her chin were gone, and her face had resumed a human shape. Her eye had re-formed beneath a scarred lid. Lashes bristled this way and that in a drooping line across it.
    Liyliy swallowed down bile.
    Talto’s tears fell.
    Lifting her arm so she could view it, Liyliy learned it was no longer mottled with feathers, and her fingers, though still twisted, were the proper length. Her leg felt regenerated. She clasped her youngest sister into her arms. “Do not cry, Talto. It is better than it was.”
    “Do not leave us here,” Talto whispered.
    Liyliy pulled Ailo into their hug and by touch told them she had to do just that.
    You