How did it happen?”There was a piece of me that shouted its alarm: if you speak he will turn gray and hate you. But I pushed past it. If he turned gray, then he did. I would not go on anymore weaving my cloths by day and unraveling them again at night, making nothing. I told him the whole tale of it, each jealousy and folly and all the lives that had been lost because of me.

Is she unhappy? But he would have laughed at such a mewling question, and he would have been right to. My witchcraft, the island, my lion, all of them sprang from her transformation. There was no honesty in regretting what had given me my life.

I could have stopped them," he said. The skin of his face was very pale; his voice was hoarse. "I was close enough. I could have saved her."I shook my head. "You could not have known."He buried his face in his hands and did not speak. I held him and whispered all the bits of broken comfort I could find.

Do not try to take my regret from me.