Chapter One CHAPTER ONE I was wearing my sister Gavotte''s face on the night the blighthunters came to our cottage. All eight of us were crowded around the table, waging a fierce poetry battle to decide who would get the last slice of Da''s gooseberry pie. Indigo was arguing passionately that "savage" really did rhyme with "cabbage," which was probably why none of us noticed the threat except Sonnet, who didn''t care for gooseberries. "There''s someone coming down the lane." Sonnet rose from the table and went to peer through the diamond-pane window beside the door. A spark of worry nibbled at me. Hardly anyone came all the way out to our farm. We were too close to the Mirrorwood.

Our cozy cottage--a bit ramshackle with the extra rooms tacked on over the years to handle three sets of twins--lay on the farthest edge of town. If you stood in just the right spot, you could see the enormous wall of thorns bristling along the northern hills. A prickly promise, meant to bind away the magic of the blighted realm and keep it from tainting the rest of the world. But it hadn''t worked. Magic still escaped. Dribs and drabs, like the spatters of madder and saffron that flecked Mum''s apron after a day working her dye pots. Fragments of raw blight that warped whatever--whomever--they touched. Twists, we called them.

You might suddenly sprout wings or claws. Your skin might turn to flames or ice. No wonder folks were scared of it. I would be too. That is, if I weren''t already blighted. For me, the greatest danger wasn''t the thorns or the corrupting magic. It was being discovered by those who thought anything touched by the twists had to be destroyed: blighthunters. The crimson-coated warriors trained to fight and kill people like me.

But surely there was no reason for hunters to visit our farm. "Is it Aunt Nesta?" I asked hopefully. She was family. She knew my secret. She was safe. "No," said Sonnet. Her shoulders were stiff, and there was a note of wary tension in her voice. "There''s two of them.

Riding horses." Da and Mum exchanged a look. Mum''s lips had gone tight. "Allegra," Mum said to my twin sister. "Best be ready, just in case." Allegra groaned. "It''s not my turn. Can''t Fable go upstairs? It''s probably just another peddler.

" I started to push away from the table. "It''s okay. I''ll go. But if they''re selling charms against the blight, buy me one," I added, trying to make a joke of it. No one laughed. Indigo was glowering at Allegra. "Ease up, Leg. It''s not Fable''s fault.

One extra day won''t do you harm." "Oh, I know exactly how much harm it does." She didn''t look at me, but I flinched anyway. Allegra was my twin sister, and I knew she loved me. But you can love someone and still be angry at them. Not that I blamed her, after what I''d done to her for the first five years of our lives. Sonnet, still at the window, drew in a sharp breath. "They''re wearing red coats.

" No one spoke. No one moved. Hunters wore red. "Everyone stay calm," said Mum, her voice brisk and businesslike, as if she were negotiating the price of her wool. "We''ll handle it like we always do." A chilly pit had opened in my belly. We''d had close calls with hunters before. Last summer my brother Thespian had to truss me up in a burlap sack and carry me over his shoulder, pretending I was a lumpy bag of turnips, in order to pass a hunter on the road to Aunt Nesta''s.

But they''d never come to our house. And I hardly ever left our family farm. The last time I''d seen anyone other than family was. oh. Oh no. Last week. I''d been out gathering wild strawberries at the edge of the northern woods. The miller''s son had passed by along the old hunters'' trail.

I''d run as soon as I saw him. But had he seen me? More importantly, had he seen the face I was wearing? I couldn''t answer those questions. All I could do was try to be what I''d always been: Allegra''s identical twin. I gulped, looking at my sister. "Go on, then, take it." She slid closer along the bench, wearing a look of grim resignation that stabbed me in the gut. It wasn''t fair. I didn''t want this either.

I''d give anything not to be like this. "Sorry," I whispered, cringing at just how useless the word was, after everything I''d already done to her. Everything my blight had taken. "Sorry" would never be enough. She only closed her eyes, bracing herself. I reached out to brush my fingers against her cheek. That was all it took. My curse, my blight, woke hungrily.

Buzzing warmth rippled up my arm, my neck, tingling across my face as skin shimmered, bone shifted, and my face reshaped itself. The wavy brown hair I''d borrowed from Gavotte lightened to Allegra''s honey blond. My nose shrank, turning snub. A heartbeat later, and no one would have guessed that I was anything other than Allegra''s identical twin. Only my family knew the truth: that I was a blighted face stealer. Allegra whimpered, gripping the edge of the table as if someone had just torn away a bit of her soul. That was how she''d described it, the one time I dared ask her how it felt. Thespian had tried to tell me it wasn''t bad, like standing up too fast and getting a head rush, but I think he was just trying to make me feel better.

Allegra always told the truth, even when it hurt. I scooted back along the bench, giving her space. No one else said anything. Mum and Da had never made a fuss over my face stealing. I think they wanted to pretend it was an everyday thing, like feeding the chickens or washing the dishes. Not a curse that could have me and my entire family imprisoned, or worse. I ran a hand over my hair. Allegra''s hair.

It would be fine. Hunters had never visited our house before, but we''d practiced how to handle it. Just act normal. Absolutely normal. "They''ve hitched their horses at the post," said Sonnet. Mum went to wait with her by the door, while Da cleared away the dishes and Gavotte covered the last slice of pie with a napkin. Thespian sat at the end of the table, watching me out of the corner of his eye, the way our sheepdogs watched the flock. I knotted my hands together, feeling utterly miserable.

Moth sprang up onto my lap, butting his head against my fingers and purring. I cuddled him closer, his warm weight steadying me, as usual. Making it easier to breathe, to think. Do not worry, his voice whispered in my mind. If the hunters try to take you, I will slash out their eyes. "My sweet, bloodthirsty fluff." I skritched him between the ears until his purr became a deep drone. "Oh, yes, talk to your cat," said Indigo dryly.

"That''ll convince the hunters there''s nothing to investigate." "Lots of people talk to their cats." Indigo arched a brow. "But how many of the cats talk back ?" I ignored them. No one could hear Moth except me, in any case. And right now he was the only thing keeping me from falling into a complete panic. Sonnet returned to the table, sliding onto the bench beside me, her shoulder bumping mine. "Remember what I taught you, Fey? If they grab you, go for the eyes.

Or the throat. Or the instep." Her hands, resting on her thighs, were clenched into tight fists. It made something sharp claw at my throat. I didn''t want my family to have to do this. To risk themselves for me. Sonnet''s eyes fixed on the door. A moment later, a thump rattled the heavy oak.

Mum squared her shoulders, then reached for the handle, swinging it open. "Good evening," she said, her voice cool and calm. "How can we help you?" "Good evening, madam," said the man on the doorstep. I couldn''t see much of him, only the way his tall shadow fell over my mother. His voice was as cool and chilly as deep-buried stone. "Might my apprentice and I come in? I don''t wish to trouble your family, but it would help us greatly if we could ask a few questions." Dread shivered through me. The miller''s son.

He had seen me last week, out by the strawberry meadow. If I''d been wearing Allegra''s face--or any of my siblings'', really--I''d have waved and called a hullo. There wasn''t such a great difference in size between us, though Sonnet and Thespian had both shot up since they''d turned sixteen over the winter. Even so, I could still pass myself off as them, from a distance. But that day I had been wearing my father''s face. Including his long, luxurious brown beard. I was a good two feet shorter than him, so on me, it fell to my belly button. Indigo said it made me look like an overgrown gnome.

So instead of waving and hulloing, I''d run, sprinting off into the woods like a startled rabbit. I hadn''t told anyone about it. The boy hadn''t chased after me, so no harm done. Besides, if I told my parents, they might decide not to let me wander the wilds anymore, and I couldn''t bear the thought of losing my last bit of freedom. It was too dangerous for me to go to town: I couldn''t always control my blight, and the last thing I needed was to bump into someone at the market and accidentally steal their face. The farm, the fields, the woods, they were all I had. The only place that I could walk freely, breathe deep, feel like a normal twelve-year-old girl. Clearly, I was mistaken.

If only I could sprint away now and lose myself in the green woods. But it was too late: Mum had already ushered the hunters inside. It would look suspicious to deny them. I sat stiffly, frozen in fear, as the two crimson-coat.