“Nothing so simple,” Kirra said. “I need—an opinion. I need advice. I don’t know what to do.”
There was a moment’s studied silence, and she realized they all thought she was speaking of her illicit romance. For a moment she wanted to laugh out loud; she actually had not thought of Romar for the entire day. Donnal, yes. Donnal she wished was here at this conference, for he could help her more than any of them. He was the only other one who understood shape-shifting; he was the one who could help her work through the spells or tell her flat out she would be a fool to try them. But Donnal was gone. She would never see Donnal again.
“Advice about what?” Justin finally asked.
She ignored him; pretty much she ignored all of them but Senneth. She kept her gaze on Senneth’s gray eyes as she slowly told her story. “Ariane’s granddaughter is dying of red-horse fever. It’s a disease for which not even mystics have a cure. Her son-in-law just told me that when horses and dogs get this same disease, they can be treated with an herbal potion and they survive. But the same potion will kill a human.”
Senneth’s face sharpened; she thought it through as quickly as Ariane had, as Kirra had. “I thought you didn’t know those spells.”
“I don’t.”
“What spells?” Justin demanded.
Tayse had crossed the room so silently that he was standing beside the card table before Kirra had even realized he was moving. “You want to change this child into an animal?” he asked.
“I thought that was forbidden!” Justin exclaimed.
Kirra glanced at each of them in turn. “It is. And I don’t know if I can do it. And I don’t know if I should do it. I don’t know if that suddenly means—” She waved her hands, unable to explain.
“Means that mystics are even more fearsome than people believed they were,” Senneth supplied. “Means that you put yourself and every other mystic in danger by proving how very powerful we are.”
“Yes,” Kirra said.
“But a little girl is dying?” Cammon asked. “Well, you have to do what you can to save her. Don’t you?”
Kirra gave him a brief, tight smile. “I don’t know if I can do this. I’ve never done it. What if I try to change her—and I kill her?”
“She’s going to die anyway,” Senneth said.
Kirra nodded. “But I don’t want it to be at my hands.”
“Practice on someone else first,” Cammon suggested. “Practice on me.” They all looked at him in silence. “What?” he said. “I’m not afraid.”
“Thank you,” Kirra said. “But I don’t think you’d be a good choice. You’re too open to magic. Even if I could change you, it wouldn’t prove anything. I would need to practice on someone ordinary.”
“I wonder if Melly would do it,” Senneth said.
Kirra considered. “She might. She seems to trust me. But what a thing to ask someone! Especially a servant! Would she only agree because she cannot afford to offend House Danalustrous? I would not want to take advantage of her that way.”
“Then perhaps Ariane could supply someone who would be willing to undergo your experiment. One of her vassals. An older man who does not have much left to live for,” Senneth said.
Tayse snorted. “Even old men tend to want to die with some dignity,” he said. “And being turned into a dog—or unsuccessfully turned into a dog—sounds like an ignominious end.”
“Yes, and even if I can manage the transformation into another creature, I don’t know if I can reverse it!” Kirra exclaimed. “I mean, I might have to leave him as a dog forever! Not a bad existence, speaking as one who’s lived it from time to time, but certainly not one that most people would choose!”
“You would have to explain the risks very carefully,” Senneth said. “You would have to find someone willing to volunteer.”
Kirra gave a short laugh. “Ariane would, I know it. She would be willing to do almost anything at this point to save her granddaughter.”
“Ariane Rappengrass cannot be spared,” Tayse said.
“I know. But her son-in-law, maybe—he seems to love his daughter enough to risk his life.”
“I’ll do it,” Justin said.
They stared at him.
He shrugged. “I will. I’m no more afraid than Cammon is.”
Kirra shook her head, tried to speak. It was hard to find her voice. “Justin,” she said. “I don’t know that you can be spared, either.”
He smiled at her, jaunty and cool. The Rider who feared nothing. The street urchin who gambled with his life every day. He had not even looked at Tayse to get the other Rider’s permission, something he always did almost as a matter of course. “I trust you,” he said.
“I’m not sure I trust myself.”
“You can do it,” Cammon said. “I’ll help you.”
Kirra looked at him helplessly. “How?”
He held out his hand. “Give me that charm you always carry.”
She flicked a look at Senneth, who was trying hard not to smile. This was Cammon at his most eerie. How did he know about the little lioness? And why could he possibly want it now? Kirra fished it out of her pocket and handed it to him. “Why?”
Cammon’s fingers closed over the figurine and Kirra felt a jolt of power lick through her veins. She stiffened and bunched her fingers into fists. Senneth was watching them both curiously. “What just happened?” Senneth asked.
“Cammon. He did something.”
Cammon seemed wholly nonchalant. “Kirra picked up this little piece from the Wild Mother’s shrine. It’s some kind of amplifier. Like the moonstone is a damper. It’s rich with the wild god’s power.”
“Then—shouldn’t Kirra be the one to hold on to it?” Tayse asked. “If she’s going to be playing with the wild god’s magic?”
But Senneth got it first. “Cammon’s an amplifier, too,” she said quietly. “He has power of his own, and he can channel it through this charm, feed it to Kirra. Or at least he thinks he can.”
Cammon grinned. “Pretty sure I can.”
Kirra’s voice was strangled. “Oh, he can. I can feel it. It’s like a fever, only better than that. My veins feel like they’re full of sparks. Am I glowing? I feel like I should be.”
“You look the same,” Tayse said.
“Let’s get started,” Justin said. “What do I do?”
Kirra looked around, nervous and distracted. “Um—I suppose—get on the floor, on your hands and knees.”
“Do I need to take my clothes off?”
She shook her head. “No. They’ll be the easiest part of you to change. Just get comfortable.”
Justin settled himself on the floor, resting on his heels, hands braced before him. “Will it hurt?”
“Well, it never hurts me, but I don’t know. It shouldn’t. If it does—if it does—cry out or raise a hand or—or do something, and I’ll try to stop. But Justin, I don’t know if I can—”
He cut her short. “All right. I’m ready.”
She knelt before him, put her hands on his shoulders. She had never done this spell before, but she knew she had to touch him to make it work. His muscles were relaxed under her hands. He stared straight into her eyes, but she could not read fear anywhere on his face.
Cammon stood behind her and she could feel him like a blacksmith’s forge, radiating magic as if it were heat. Her own skin was flushed with it; her hands felt hot enough to burn through Justin’s shirt. If someone cut her open now, she was sure her blood would run opal.
She closed her eyes and imagined Justin as a dog. Some scruffy butterscotch mutt, the kind likely to be found in any back alley snarling over a scrap of food, face crossed with old scars, rangy and fit and mean. Even the bigger dogs were afraid of him, and the small ones whimpered at his approach. But his plumed tail showed a ragged elegance; his eyes were dark with intelligence. This was a dog that could be cleaned up and put to good use if someone had the patience to train him. . . .
She heard Senneth’s gasp
and her eyes flew open. That very dog sat before her, a little lighter in color than she had visualized, with a brighter, more inquiring expression. Her hands—too hot to even feel the transformation as it occurred—fell limply to her sides. He sat there very still, watching her, as if he didn’t realize he was no longer human, as if he didn’t know what he should be expecting.
“Justin,” she said in a quiet voice. “You’ve successfully made the transition. Can you tell? You can stand up—you can move around—”
The dark eyes dropped, and he lifted first one paw, then another. Somewhat hesitantly, he came to all four feet and took a few tentative steps—and then a few more, as he got used to his unfamiliar body. Suddenly he bounded across the room, leaping across a low table just for the pleasure of feeling his muscles stretch, jumping to the bed and down to the floor again. The open window caught his eye. He scrambled over to it, put his forelegs up on the sill, and peered out. Whatever he saw pleased him, and he released three short barks.
That pleased him even more, and he dropped to his feet again, barking joyously. He had a deep, throaty voice, musical and appealing, and it was clear he loved the sound. Barking still, he bounded back over to Kirra where she knelt on the floor, and knocked her over with exuberance. She flung up a hand to protect herself, but too late; he had already licked her across the face.
“That’s Justin,” Tayse said dryly.
Kirra elbowed him away and he dashed over to Senneth, licking her fingers and frolicking around her feet. She laughed and leaned down to scratch the top of his head. Kirra pushed herself back to a sitting position and looked at Cammon over her shoulder.
“You can tell he’s a dog, can’t you?” she said. “I mean, I know you’re never blinded by magic, you always see the essence of things, but you can tell he’s changed, can’t you?”
“Sort of,” Cammon said. “I can tell he’s a dog but—he still looks like Justin. I would never mistake him for an ordinary animal.”
The sound of Cammon’s voice caught the mongrel’s attention. He left Senneth’s side and flung himself at Cammon, bringing both of them to the floor. Cammon yelped with laughter and the two of them wrestled for a few minutes.
“A boy and his dog,” Senneth said. “It’s so touching.”
Tayse looked at Kirra. “Was that hard?”
She shook her head. “It’s frightening how easy it was.”
“Will you be able to change him back?”
She nodded.
“I don’t think he wants to be changed back,” Senneth said.
“Even if that were his preference,” Tayse said, “she has to prove she can do it, or the whole experiment is worthless.”
Justin pulled himself off of Cammon and trotted back to plant himself in front of Tayse. Now he barked out a long, earnest sentence, as if he was trying to communicate, as if he really thought they might understand him.
Kirra looked at Cammon. “So? What’s he saying?”
Cammon was tucking his shirt back in his trousers. “No idea. Sounds like he thinks it’s important.”
“Time to end this,” Tayse said.
Kirra couldn’t help herself. She whistled as she would have to any of her father’s hounds. “Here, boy,” she called. Justin’s head pulled around as if he would respond, and then it was clear the insult registered. He planted himself more firmly, lowering his head in an attitude of defiance.
“Oh, yes,” said Kirra. “I’d be able to pick him out of a pack any day.”
He didn’t move off when she scooted over to sit next to him, though. He did lick her wrist when she put one hand on the top of his head. “Settle down,” she commanded. “I have to concentrate. You don’t want this to be the part I get wrong, do you?”
He gave a big doggie yawn, his pink tongue curling in disdain. She looked at Tayse. “Can’t I just leave him like this?”
Tayse barely smiled. “No.”
Justin’s tongue brushed her hand again. She put both palms on either side of his narrow face and said, “Sit still.” Cammon came over, so close she could feel his knee against her back. That sparkling heat filled her again, made her veins sizzle.
This time she didn’t close her eyes. She stared down at the dog and thought of Justin, with his sandy hair and scoffing expression and warrior’s reflexes. She hated him and she loved him and he was her friend, and she conjured him up from memory and will.
His metamorphosis was as rapid as Donnal’s always were. One moment, a mutt. The next, a man, crouched on the floor with his face between her hands. There was a frozen minute when no one spoke or moved, and then Justin pulled himself free and stood up. He was laughing. Kirra had never seen him look so absolutely given over to delight.
“That’s something I want to do again!” he exclaimed. “I never had so much fun! And think of the possibilities! Tayse, can you imagine? She could send a whole battalion of soldiers across enemy lines, disguised as cats or squirrels or birds, and once they were in position, they would be turned back into men—”
“Precisely the reason people fear shiftlings,” Senneth murmured.
“How were your senses? Did you lose your regular thought processes?” Tayse wanted to know.
“No! It was—it was strange, my body felt strange, but I—and my eyes were different, what I could see—but I could hear things and smell things—it would take a little practice, I think, but I could run a race in that shape, or catch a rabbit or—just be a dog.”
Cammon reached down to pull Kirra off the floor. She said, “You don’t lose your sense of self. It’s filtered a little, but it’s still there. It’s hard to explain.”
Tayse looked at her. “Could you really change a whole battalion of soldiers and send them across enemy lines?”
She laughed nervously. “I don’t know. I didn’t even know I could do this.”
“Something to think about,” Tayse said.
“Later,” Senneth said. “Today she has a little girl to heal.”
CAMMON accompanied her to the dark room in the upper story. Ariane, Bella, and Marco were all still there. Lyrie was sitting up in bed, eating what looked like toast. She smiled and waved from across the room when Kirra stepped through the door.
Ariane met them before they had gone three paces. “Well? What have you decided?”
“I think I can do this. I think I can try,” Kirra amended. “I am afraid to make promises. But someone must explain to Lyrie—”
“She wants to do it,” Ariane interrupted. “I asked her—when you were gone—I told them all what you were thinking.”
“And they agreed? All of them? Because if I make a mistake, it will be a terrible one.”
“Marco has already been to the stables and gotten a bundle of herbs from the head groom. He told the man that one of the house dogs had fallen sick, and the groom told him how to mix the potion. Everyone wants to do this, Kirra.”
“I just want you to be sure.”
“I’m sure.”
But she asked Lyrie, too, when she seated herself once more on the side of the bed. “You understand what I want to do?” she asked, studying the wide, eager face.
“Yes. You’re going to turn me into a dog. And I’ll take medicine for a week and then I’ll be better.”
“If everything works. If the magic holds, if the potion is just right, if I am able to do the spells. Lyrie, I have never done this before, and I—”
“I want to,” the girl interrupted. “Please. I don’t care if it hurts.”
“It won’t hurt,” Cammon said.
Lyrie and her relatives all looked at him. “This is Cammon,” Kirra said hastily. “He’s also a mystic. Not a shape-shifter, a—Well, a man with strange gifts. He’s going to help me.”
He smiled down at Lyrie. Impossible, but he seemed entirely at ease. “I’ll be able to tell if something’s going wrong,” he said. “If something’s hurting you. I’m good at reading people’s emotions.”
Lyrie looked interested. “Will y
ou be able to talk to me when I’m a dog?”
“Probably not,” Cammon said.
Bella leaned forward and touched Lyrie’s hand to get her attention. “Baby, you understand you’ll have to be a dog for a few days. A week. You understand it takes a long time for the medicine to take effect.”
“I know,” Lyrie said.
“She’ll be able to understand you,” Kirra said. “She’ll hear everything you say. She’ll think like a little girl. She just won’t—look like one. Her body will be shaped differently. Her spirit will not change.”