“Should I let it live?” Ezqel crossed his arms over his chest and looked at the squirming man trying to
crawl away on fingerless hands and crippled legs.
Dane rumbled and got up, stretching until his back cracked and his twitching tail nearly caught fire on
the burning truck. Sneezing at the offense of smoldering synthetics, he paced over to circle the last of their prey. If they killed it, it was likely that Moore and her kind would be stupid enough to send more, and that would be irritating. He yawned mightily, shaking his mane for emphasis.
“You’re right.” Ezqel bent to pick up the man’s cell phone and, muttering an unlocking spell, pressed
a few buttons gingerly. Dane didn’t recognize the voice on the other end. “This is over,” Ezqel said to it, holding it out in front of him as though he wasn’t quite sure what to do with it and didn’t want it too near his face. When Ezqel threw the phone at the ruined man and it landed in front of him, the man scrabbled for it and began babbling into it hysterically.
What happened? Who’s there? What do you mean, they’re all dead? The phone echoed the distress
back across the miles.
Dane sat and sighed, bending his head to lick some gore from his chest. People didn’t learn. Worse,
they forgot. If they bothered to remember, no one would have been foolish enough to come into the forest.
“Let’s go home.” Ezqel stepped back into the forest that opened up for him with a sigh.
Dane didn’t bother to argue the semantics of “home” with him, but followed at his heels. After a mile,
the path widened so that Dane could pace along beside him. Soon, the path curved around the side of the
mountain and they were walking the same trail that Dane had led Lindsay up that morning. Dane drew a
breath and remembered what it was like to walk on two legs.
“Done playing the beast?” Ezqel didn’t look over at him.
“Who said I was ever playing?” Dane felt small and bare in this body. His skin itched, and his short
teeth were on edge. He tugged his robe tighter around him. It was as clean as it had been when he’d shifted; where things went when he was on four legs was a mystery he’d never questioned. They were here, just not
here. He’d never lost anything. Not yet, at least.
“I know you well enough.” Ezqel’s irritation was a little bit comforting.
“Do you?” Dane wasn’t sure Ezqel did, nor Cyrus, for that matter. They knew what it suited them to
know, and they didn’t care about the rest.
“Well enough to remember you were more than just a mangy circus animal once.” Ezqel did look
over now as he led the way around to the back of the faerie cottage. The dusk softened his features, made
him seem more human, almost caring. “Best to find out if you still have it in you before you need it.”
Dane shrugged. “No sense showing off,” he said dryly. A small door hidden at the side of the house
swung open for them as they came up the path.
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“You’re still a bad liar.” Ezqel headed up the stairs to his study and was almost around the first turn
when he stopped and turned back. Dane stood at the bottom of the stairs, impressed that Ezqel had noticed
he wasn’t following before getting all the way to the top. “Have something you need to do?”
“Yes.” Dane wasn’t going to admit that he was anxious to get back and check on Lindsay.
There was perhaps a flicker of concern mixed into the irritation in Ezqel’s expression. It was hard to
tell with him sometimes. His expressions were not always human and his scents were unique. “Thank you
for your assistance today,” he said, the words heavy and stiff.
“It was nothing.” The flat response wasn’t rudeness, it was necessary so that no hint of obligation
remained between them. The words of old men held too much weight to be allowed to wander outside the
bounds of formality.
Ezqel tilted his head, listening for something, then frowned. “You returned Yzumrud.”
“I did. It was useful.” Dane put emphasis on the past tense. He’d taken more from Ezqel than he’d
ever intended, even if it all had been for his own purposes. The ring sat in the drawer of the desk in the room Dane shared with Lindsay, waiting to be put back in its place. He wasn’t taking it with him again.
An exhalation was the only sound of Ezqel’s surrender, but it was loud in Dane’s ears. “Very well.
Have a good evening. I doubt I will see you before you leave.”
“I’ll give your regards to Vivian and Cyrus.” Dane didn’t have much else to say, not after all this
time.
“If you speak to them before I do.” No favors. Not even the small courtesies. Ezqel turned his back on
Dane and his next steps took him out of sight.
In the kitchen, Dane washed his mouth out with cold tea and looked himself over. Blood didn’t carry
through the changes—not on his skin, anyway. He rummaged around and found some mutton and cheese to
have with the tea. The utensils he needed to cut and eat were awkward in his human hands, briefly, until he remembered how it felt to use them. By the time he was fed, standing at the counter and watching dark fall
over the herb gardens, he thought he had the hang of being human again.
Physically. Washing the dishes, watching his long fingers flicker in and out of the soapy water, he
remembered being human-bodied. His human mind, his human heart, those would be stranger to revisit.
And, if he recalled them correctly, they would be more trouble than his human flesh.
Lindsay put off practicing his magic. Taniel prodded, but Lindsay reasoned that he’d let his magic
settle into his body before he played with it. He didn’t really want to find out the hard way that it wasn’t quite ready for him yet.
He spent the rest of the day with Taniel, eating, resting, and talking. Taniel was full of stories, a book
of endless fairytales that Lindsay now knew were true. By nightfall, Lindsay still hadn’t seen Dane again.
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Dane must’ve been busy with Ezqel or Izia or getting used to his magic again. Lindsay went up to the room
and got ready for bed. He tried to be adult about what he was feeling, but under it, he was just scared.
As he was getting changed, the door swung open. Lindsay turned around, smiling as soon as he saw
Dane stepping into the room. Dane was still wearing the robe he’d had on that morning, but it looked
somewhat the worse for wear—most of him did, actually. His hair was in disarray and his feet were dirty.
He didn’t look quite the same as when Lindsay had left him by the waterfall, but he didn’t look like he used to either. Somewhere in between—human, with only a hint of the feral.
“Taniel put you through your paces?” Dane asked, as though he hadn’t been gone all day.
“Not exactly,” Lindsay admitted, shrugging.
“You have to try it sometime.” Dane took his robe off and threw it over a chair. “Ezqel doesn’t screw
up. Usually.” His skin was flawless, paler, and he had less body hair, but there was still some in the center of his chest fading into a thin line that led to the soft curls at his groin.
“I will,” Lindsay said, though he wasn’t sure he wanted to try it and find out that it didn’t work. “Are
you all right?”
“Fine. Not dead yet or anything.” Dane sprawled on the bed and tucked one arm behind his head.
“Well, I’m glad to hear that.” Lindsay crawled up beside him and sat cross-legged.
“What’re you looking at?” Dane sighed heavily. “Lie down and go to sleep, Lindsay.”
Maybe Dane didn’t want to be seen like this. Lindsay didn’t want to make it worse, whatever the