When their child was born with porcelain skin and hair like ebony butter, Dana's dark-skinned husband told her he was leaving. Whether he assumed infidelity, or suspected the truth, he would not say and she did not care to ask. She named the baby girl Meadhbh, and whispered ill words of the father that she knew would come to act on him. For fear of her own curse, she wrapped her daughter in red and laid her in a charmed cradle.

When Meadhbh was newly two, her mother lost another husband, this time in an airplane crash. Their son was born a few short months later, a quiet babe with fiery hair and earthy skin. Dana named him Midhir, and did not set him in Meadhbh's discarded bed, but rather in an oaken bassinet, in which he might catch the blessing she had cast upon his father's memory.

The third child did sleep in her sister's cradle, for she did need its magic guard. She was a golden-haired girl, and born glad, though not gladly born. Onagh was the name her mother gave her, and her father was a cruel man. Dana fled him in the early months of her pregnancy, and when the girl was safely born, she visited disaster on the man.

The careless use of magic lies at the heart of many stories and more disasters. Foolish folk use grand gifts for petty ends, to assuage their greed, their vanity, their curiosity, and they never mind the consequences until it is too late.

When Dana marked her womb with a shaping magic, she meant only to gift her children with colour and form to please her eyes. Yet her spells were strong, and only her mind played shallow games. Dana's magic sank deep into the centre of her children, into their blood, into their bones, and when they were born it began to seep into their very souls. So, like many magical meddlers before her, Dana's success came only mixed with grief.

Her beautiful children were not human.