I was about to knock on the door when I stopped. Was I really going to do this? Sure, this was something I had decided I wanted to do, and considering that this was my last day as Bella this really was the last opportunity for it. But on the other hand it was going to make things harder than they already were for Margaret. 

Poor Margaret. After I was done she had looked so shocked. Not that I had spent much time there after I had worked my magic. Mother had all but pulled me out of there as soon as I was done. I had not resisted much. I had been pretty tired. I did not even really remember the walk back to my room. I just remember waking up late this morning in my bed. Or…. Myra’s bed. Though at this point I had gotten pretty used to living in that room. I suppose that was going to end this very evening.

It had been one thing for me to impersonate Myra. I had chosen to do so. Sure, it was mother who had asked me to do so again, but I had been glad to do so. For Myra. 

Had Margaret ever even met Myra? Not just passed her in the halls I mean, but really met her? And what would happen if Margaret was found out? Come what may, I was still a noble. If I was found out my reputation would be damaged, perhaps irreparably, but I was still a noble. When a commoner crosses the paths of a noble, things do not always go all that well. 

Was this my fault? I mean, I was the one who had changed her. Without my help mother would never have made her do this…..

I had just been trying to help Myra…. how did it turn out like this? When did it start going so wrong?

I was just trying to help…. 

Should I just tell them all what happened? Come clean about all of this? At least if I did that Margaret would be free again, right? But the shame that that would bring to my family…… Plus it would mean admitting that I had been lying to Edmund, had been lying to Gideon, and Al…. well, I guess Al might at least already know. 

“Uhm, hey Bella, what are you doing in front of my room?” a timid but tense voice suddenly called out to me. 

I turned around to face Gideon. I had not even heard him approaching. Apparently even if I had knocked on his room he would not have been there in the first place. 

“Umm, I came to find you. Thought we should maybe talk a bit?” I responded, trying my best to put him at ease. 

“Oh uh, sure, come in.” Gideon responded. 

Getting into the room was more of a hassle then it needed to be. Gideon tried to do the gallant thing and open the door for me, but I was literally already standing in front of it and he did not seem to want to get too close to me. After he tried to awkwardly reach around I decided to just save him the trouble and opened the door to let him into his own room instead. 

Gideon’s room was quite nice. It was about the same size as mine and Myra’s, but more sparsely decorated. On the Queen sized bed in the middle of the room lay a collection of books, a couple of whom I recognized as coming from our library. I suppose Gideon had been reading this morning. As far as I could tell they were all narrative stories, instead of anything non-fiction. I had been wondering how Gideon had been spending his time here, and I suppose I now had my answer. It did fit his character, I suppose. 

A more surprising detail was that there were some thick vines growing through the room’s windows. Had the servants been that lazy in preparing the room? It was otherwise spotless, so I found that hard to believe. They were already in bloom, though it was still early spring. Despite it looking a bit untidy there was also a certain beauty in them growing through the windows like they did. 

Gideon had apparently noticed me looking at the vines as he quickly ducked around me to get to them with an apologetic look on his face. “Oh, right. Sorry about that. I’ll clean them back up.” 

I was about to say that it was hardly his fault his room had vines in them when I realised that when he touched the vines they slowly started shrinking away at his touch. Apparently it was his fault they were there, then. 

“It’s alright, you can leave them, I don’t really mind.”

Gideon’s face lit up when I said that and he started to grow the vines back out again. 

“So… that is your magic, you can control plants?” 

Gideon nodded.

“That sounds like a pretty useful one,” I said, trying to strike up conversation.

Gideon’s face turned. “Not really, it is really slow, so I can’t really use it in combat or anything……” 

I nodded. I knew what it was like to have magic that was not all that useful in a fight. It really was seen as the most important metric. Still, at least this was pretty. 

“So, umm… you had something you wanted to talk about with me, right?” Gideon asked once the vines he had been working on had returned fully to their former glory.

Okay, I can do it. Right now. Just tell him. Right now, right here. Then I can later go visit Edmund and tell him and I suppose I should go tell Al just in case. Then Margaret would be free. Everybody would know Myra had left, but… at least nobody else would be hurt. 

“So….  what were you reading?”

I couldn’t do it.

-

Apparently the normally quite silent Gideon could become quite talkative when one broached the right subject. Books were apparently one of those ‘right subjects’. He had started out the way Gideon typically acted: quiet, demure. But as he continued talking and I gave encouragement it became more and more enthusiastic and natural and eventually turned into outright gushing. 

I did not mind though. It turned out we actually had a shared taste in books so after I got used to his newfound enthusiasm it turned into a much less one-sided conversation. We especially bonded over ‘The adventures of princess Emma’. It was generally seen as more of a children’s book series, but it was very well written. It was about a young princess who left home and went on all sorts of adventures. She faced down monsters and came out on top every time with a combination of quick thinking and the friends she made along the way. 

At some point during our conversation we had both made our way onto the bed. As I was lying comfortably and listened to him gushing about how good the fifth issue had been, I realised something. 

I could get used to this. 

I could get used to looking into those dark brown eyes. I could get used to that goofy smile and the wild hand gestures. I could get used to more afternoons like this. Just…. lying on bed and talking about some book.

I…. I wanted that. I think. Maybe?

“.... and then when she finally brings the sword of Salena down on the cockatrice’s head, it’s just such a cathartic moment, right?”

“Mmm?” I responded. 

“... Were you not paying attention anymore?” he responded, sounding slightly dejected.

“Sorry,” I responded, giving a coy smile, “I was just distracted by how cute you looked gushing like that.”

For a second I saw his cheeks turn a bright red: the desired effect. Then though his expression soured. “I am not cute,” he responded dourly. 

“Oh sorry, would you prefer I call you handsome?” I responded. I should have known ‘cute’ was not really an appropriate comment. It had been the first thing to come to mind, but I should have known a guy would feel unhappy being called ‘cute’. 

This time there was not even a blush, instead his expression soured further. “I am not that either.”

I didn’t really know what to say to that, and neither did Gideon, seemingly. For a while it had seemed like I had cured Gideon of the constant awkwardness that seemed to hang around him, but it was apparently not to last. Things were more awkward than ever.

“I’m sorry,” I finally responded.

“You don’t have to apologize, Bella,” Gideon replied, his tone pained, “I know you meant well. I just…. I don’t want you to lie for me.”

“I… I wasn’t lying…. I really did think you looked cute…”

Gideon looked honestly surprised by that. Did he really think I had been lying? He really did not look bad. Sure, he did not possess Edmund’s serene beauty or Al’s….. questionable charm, but he looked pretty good. Plus he gave these adorable looks that made you want to hug him and never let go.

“It’s just…. I don’t look cute. I look awkward, and gangly and…. I make people uncomfortable and stuff…..” 

Gideon looked like a hurt animal saying those things. But he also sounded like he earnestly believed what he was saying. I tried to pull up closer to him for a hug, he looked like he really needed it.  As I tried to do so though, he pulled away, seemingly scared. Note: do not attempt physical contact. 

“I don’t think you look like any of those things.” I responded. Gideon did not look like he believed me. Then I realised something. I could help. I could use my newfound powers for good for once. “If…. if that is the way you feel though, I might be able to help you?”

-

I quickly explained what it was I could do for him. He seemed to hesitate at first. I told him I could always reverse it if necessary. It was just a test. Just a small test to see if it helped and if it did not….. no harm done! 

I was maybe more enthusiastic than really made sense, but I was just so happy that after what I had done yesterday I might be able to use my powers to help instead. I suppose I had helped Edmund before, but only after failing in protecting him in the first place. If I had been a better fighter he never would have even gotten hurt. 

The assurance that it was reversible was enough to convince Gideon to at least try it. I asked him what specifically he wanted changed, but he was not that much help. He could not really name anything specifically, except just feeling awkward and ugly. In the end I decided I should maybe make him a little shorter and broader built, see if that helped with him feeling ‘gangly’. If not I could just redo it later. 

So I put my hand on his shoulder. He almost instinctively jerked away again, but relented. With my hand on his shoulder I noticed he was shaking slightly. I could not blame him, anybody would be nervous when they were about to have their body altered. I focussed on the feeling again, readying myself to break through another mental barrier.

What I felt instead though was pretty much the exact opposite of a barrier. Almost as soon as I focussed on the sensation again, it was like I was being pulled in. As if Gideon was mentally pulling on me with all of his might, pulling out my magic. I felt utterly without control. 

I quickly pulled away as soon as I felt that drain. I had not made contact long, but even then whatever that feeling was it had taken a good chunk out of my magic. I looked at Gideon, somewhat afraid of what I would find. 

He did not seem much shorter or broader, but there were some other noticeable changes. The first and most obvious was his hair. It had been quite short before, but now it was as long as mine. As I stared into his shocked face, I was pretty sure it looked a bit different as well. Not by much and I could not quite put my finger on what had changed, but it was subtly different. Subtly……

Oh god, had I almost turned him into Myra? 

I mean…. he did look more…. girly, and that had been what I had turned the previous person into. It had been what I had turned every person into except I suppose the prince. 

Gideon had gotten off the bed and was now looking at himself in the mirror. 

I had been expecting Gideon to be mad at me. Or well…. okay not really. It was pretty difficult to really imagine Gideon getting mad at anybody.  But at least… upset? Or…. disgusted….

Instead he had a wide smile on his face. He put his hands through his long dark locks and started playing with his hair. Then he started making faces at the mirror. He seemed to be utterly engrossed in the activity. So much so that he had apparently forgotten that I was there. 

That is at least the explanation I would give considering when he finally seemed to notice me again in the mirror he almost did a little jump in fear. 

Then we were back in the same situation as we were before. Neither of us knew what to say about this turn of events, apparently. I did not know how much to reveal about what had gone wrong and why it might be the case, and Gideon was looking at me as if I was going to start hitting him any second now. 

“So ummmm, your hair is longer….?” I said, stating the obvious. I decided not to mention the other changes I had noticed, though judging by the way he was making faces he probably had noticed them himself as well.

“Yes!” Gideon responded, then paused. “Ummm…... thank you!” he added, seemingly sounding sincere. 

“That…. was not really what I was trying to do though….” I responded. 

“Oh,” Gideon simply responded, and the awkward silence reinstated itself. “It was probably my fault, then. I was thinking about how beautiful your hair was so maybe…..”

I thought that explanation over for a bit. That could explain why I had felt out of control like that. Maybe it was something that had just been on Gideon’s mind at the time? 

“So…. do you want me to reverse it then?” 

Almost as soon as I asked I saw Gideon’s face turn sour. He really did wear his emotions on his sleeve. Clearly he was not unhappy about what had happened. Yet when after a bit he actually responded he simply said: “Yes.”

I considered what to do in these circumstances. The goal of this exercise had been to make Gideon more comfortable. Whatever the words coming out of his mouth, it was obvious by his reactions what he really preferred. On top of that I was not even entirely confident that I could reverse this. What if I lost control again? The changes as they were right now were barely noticeable outside of the hair, but I had no idea how far it would go. “We do not have to.” I responded. 

His face lit up almost immediately. The subtle changes that had taken place in his face really helped to make his smile even cuter than it had been before. 

“Won’t the others notice, though?”

“So what if they do? Some men like their hair longer.” It was true. It had even been a common fashion trend about forty years ago, my father had a portrait from his youth with long hair, which was always weird to reconcile with the man I knew. It had fallen out of favour since then, but there were still some houses where they had their hair long. “We can just say you wanted to change things up and I helped.” I did not mention his other changes. I was not really sure to broach the subject, and the changes were subtle enough that I was half unsure if I was maybe just imagining things. In either case I doubt anybody would notice if they did not know what to look out for.

“I…. I suppose you are right,” he answered with a smile that made all the trouble this could cause worth it. 

Because despite my reassurances this was going to lead to trouble. It made Margaret’s job harder. Mother would not be happy that I had revealed what I could do to Gideon. Gideon himself might face issues when he had to return to his family. But at the very least I had helped somebody.