Ever since she could remember.
Memories that only started when she was eight years old.
Chapter Ten
“Heavy net,” Striker said. “Locks you in one shape. One form. Like your normal human form or-”
“A stone statue,” Chalia said. Chance and Dark exchanged glances, and Kett realized they’d probably never been told the story. Hell, Chance hadn’t even been born at the time.
But Striker had been the one who’d discovered Kett festering in her own anger on Koskwim. He and Chalia had uncovered the whole story of what happened to her as a child.
“This-this is the same thing that trapped me as a kid?”
Striker nodded slowly. “Penny-a-word enchantment.”
An enchantment. The kind of thing anyone could do if they knew the words. Enchantments nearly always came with an “undo” clause. But you had to know the right words for that too.
“So…the reason I couldn’t lift it is because I didn’t know the words?” Chance asked.
“No, the reason you couldn’t lift it is because you’re an ungrateful, self-denying idiot who never learned how to use her magic,” Striker said.
“So how do we remove it then?” Chance asked, but no one replied because Striker made a sudden movement, as if pulling something off Kett.
For a second she thought he was going to take her skin with him, and then…
Then she was free.
If Kett had ever worn a corset, she’d have compared the experience to shedding the restricting garment and being able to breathe freely. As it was, it felt to her like climbing out of a vault and breathing fresh oxygen, or curing a long-standing injury.
“Gods,” she gasped, almost moaning as blood seemed to flow properly through her veins for the first time in a month. “How do you stand it?”
“What?” Chance asked, and then blinked as Kett’s skin sprouted fur, then scales, turned blue and then green, grew feathers and rippled with change.
“Being stuck in the same shape all the time, it’s like suffocating.” Her mind reeling with relief, Kett moved to unfasten her dress, then thought better of it and just changed her shape to undulate out of the silk, watching it flutter to the floor as she stretched her naked body. Her bones snapped, her muscles stretched, her blood roared, and then she dropped to all fours and watched her hands become paws, felt thick fur grow, flexed her claws and swished her tail.
She paced, stretched, then backed up and went into a running leap, changing mid-air into a horse, landing on unshod hooves and whinnying with joy.
“Show-off,” Striker said, lighting a cigarette. Kett narrowed her eyes, took another leap and this time turned into an eagle, snatching the cigarette from his lips and wheeling round the room with it in one clawed foot.
“Bring that back,” he said, a rather bored threat in his voice, “or I’ll shoot you.”
Kett circled lazily then turned herself into a gryphon and landed on the card table by the window. She flowed to the ground as a snake, gripping the cigarette in her tail, then rose up and turned herself human again.
Unselfconscious, feeling invincible now she was back to her old self, she crossed the room and put the cigarette back between Striker’s lips.
“Don’t get cocky,” he said.
“Me?” Briefly, Kett entertained herself with the idea of morphing a cock, but dismissed it as an idea best explored in private. Now she could change her shape again, could shift into anything, could look like-
“Are you done now?” Striker asked, and Kett smiled as she stepped back into her dress, feeling invigorated, feeling like herself, feeling better than she had since before that damn tiger ripped her leg open.
“Thanks, by the way,” she said to Striker, who just shrugged. To Chance she added, “What did you want to talk to me about?”
“About the enchantment on you,” Chance said. “I thought Striker might be able to lift it. And now,” her lovely eyes sparkled, “you and Bael have something in common.”
Abruptly, Kett’s happiness morphed into a mallet and smacked her on the head. Her smile vanished.
“Don’t you want to have something in common with him?” Chalia asked. “He’s gorgeous, Kett. And he clearly adores you.”
“No, he doesn’t,” Kett said automatically.
“He’s your mate,” Chance pointed out.
“No, he’s not. There’s no such thing as mates. Not for me.”
“But-”
“He’s confused. That’s all. He thinks I’m-”
Her words snapped themselves off.
She could change her shape again. She could make herself look like anything she wanted. It took practice, of course, and if she wanted to make herself an exact replica of something new or someone in particular, it was incredibly difficult.
But it was possible, with practice, to change her human appearance. To look like someone else. Bael’s words came back to her…
“Kett,” Chalia said warningly, exchanging a look with her daughter.
“You’re right,” Kett said. “We do have something in common now. I think…” They’d need to be somewhere else, somewhere she wouldn’t run the risk of meeting someone she knew who might blow her cover. “Keep this quiet, yeah? I’ll tell him myself.”
And then they’d go away. Back to the ranch, maybe, or to wherever Bael lived. Yes. Where he had friends or whatever. The more witnesses the better.
She smiled suddenly. “You know what?” she said to her aunt and cousin. “This changes everything.”
The Free Hospital was crowded and noisy, the staff sullen under their jolly Yuletide hats. Bael didn’t blame them. The place was depressing as hell. After the third person snapped at him that animals were simply not allowed in the hospital, he merged Var with himself, helped the young garda frogmarch the three miscreants through the hospital and waited with them until a couple of gardai who were actually on duty could come to take watch.
When the one called Willifus complained, Bael broke his other arm.
It wasn’t that he wanted to spend his evening in a disease-ridden hellhole with three sullen, braying teenagers, but he figured it might earn him some points with Kett. And her family would definitely think he was wonderful.
And he got to legitimately beat the shit out of someone, which was always stress-relieving.
When the pale green light of a faery lit up the ward, Sergeant Verrick looked up expectantly, but the tiny winged creature flew to Bael and handed him a small scroll.
“I’m to wait for your reply,” he said in his shrill faery voice, and Bael nodded, unrolling the paper.
Bael sighed. Bloody Albhar never let him have any fun. Usually he’d skim such a letter, but right now, with nothing else to do, he might as well read it.
Any second now he was going to read the phrase “your father’s research”, and that other personal favorite,
