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“This isn’t real,” Fitz said, staring at the picture Sophie was showing him.
“I mean, no one naturally looks like that,” Sophie said. “The nose is fake, and the hair is either fake or colored artificially. But like, it’s a thing people do.”
“They make themselves look like that for fun?”
“I mean, yeah. Well, sometimes they do it to scare people—”
“Yeah, that I believe.”
“It’s not that bad,” Sophie said, shoving his shoulder lightly.
“It is that bad,” Dex said, dropping down on the end of the sofa. “But it’s great.”
The look in his eye was one Sophie had seen before, and her eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What terrible idea have I given you?” Sophie asked.
Dex grinned.
“So what do they actually do, then?” Fitz asked. “Or do people just look at them?”
“All kinds of things,” Sophie said. “Play pranks, ride unicycles, tell jokes, if they’re talking ones, sometimes they just don’t talk at all—”
“I can work with that,” Dex said, and hurried out.
Sophie and Fitz stared after him. “Watch your food and drink carefully,” Sophie said.
They’d almost made it through dinner that evening when Sophie noticed Keefe’s hair begin to turn red. She looked at Dex, who was hiding a grin. Sophie sighed and tucked back into her dinner, shooting intermittent looks at Keefe.
“Someone’s paying me a lot of attention tonight,” Keefe said, winking at her.
Sophie blushed and glared at Dex.
Keefe caught the look and instantly narrowed his eyes. “If you slipped me a balding potion, Dizznee, you will regret—”
“Don’t worry, you still have hair,” Biana said, suppressing a giggle.
Sophie looked up again and barely contained a snort. His hair was fully bright red now, and sticking out at odd angles. His face had paled to almost white and his nose had swelled into a large red bulb, and bright red polka dots were appearing all down his tunic and cloak. Sophie leaned to the side and confirmed that he had also sprouted large red shoes.
“What did—” Keefe’s mouth kept moving, but sound stopped coming out of it.
Sophie picked up one of the empty silver platters on the table and angled it so that Keefe could see his reflection.
Keefe’s eyes widened, and then his eyes snapped to Dex, who had already been backing towards the door. Keefe lunged, and Dex fled.
“What even was that?” Biana asked. “It looked like a nightmare.”
“Trust me,” Fitz told her. “You don’t want to know.”