“Good morning,” Gen said behind her.
Stella shrieked, clapping a hand to her thudding heart so it wouldn’t burst out of her chest.
“Sorry,” Gen said, plopping down beside her, her soft indigo eyes full of puzzlement. “What’s up with you? You’re usually impossible to sneak up on.”
“Did you see it?” Stella asked breathlessly.
“No! See what?” With eager excitement, Gen scanned the silent, undisturbed water. “Did you get a glimpse of the lake creature?”
“More than a glimpse.” Or… had she? Gen had walked up behind her within moments of the creature disappearing. It wasn’t that short of a walk from the manse, so Gen should have seen it. There was no way she could’ve missed it. Unless the encounter hadn’t been real. “Maybe I imagined it,” Stella said on a considering breath.
“Most people only see bits of it.” Gen shook back her long chestnut hair, studying the water. “A head or tail poking up, a loop of body. There and gone again.”
“I saw more than that. Or I think I did.” With Gen beside her, reality had regained a firmer feel—and the incident with the lake creature began to seem even more dreamlike.
“Tell me.” Gen now studied her with gentle concern.
So Stella described the incident, Gen listening thoughtfully. “How could I have not seen it?” she asked when Stella finished.
“Maybe because I dreamed it?” Stella ventured. More and more, that seemed like the most reasonable explanation. She’d been upset, needing something to take her mind off the confrontation with Jak, off the mourning for her twin, the icy prospect of a life lived without love. Off that abrupt ending to her life path, in an isolated tower in a sea of lilies.
“I doubt it,” Gen replied in a practical tone. “More likely it’s a sorceress thing. Like the creature can’t be seen with mortal eyes or something.”
“There are stories of sightings by non-sorcerous types,” Stella pointed out. “And I’m mortal, too.”
“Not like the rest of us,” Gen commented without rancor, and without noticing how Stella flinched internally at the assessment. “Besides, the stories surrounding sightings of the lake creature always include some aspect that only the chosen, or the pure of heart or something, can see it. If any of us is pure of heart, it would be you.”
“I’m definitely not that,” Stella replied, an unexpectedly bitter edge to her voice. One that took Gen by surprise.
“Is something wrong?” she asked with a concerned frown. “I mean, besides seeing a mythical lake monster and then me scaring you out of your skin.”
“Not at all,” Stella said as serenely as possible. “Just a little rattled, as you say. But I also don’t believe in the purity-of-heart or chosen-one explanations.”
“Yes, well, the stories conflict,” Gen agreed. “And there’s a lot of superstition tied in around it, with the good luck and conferring of blessings. It would take serious study to sort the grains of truth from all the chaff.”
“How do you know so much about it now?” Stella didn’t think Gen had known more than the rest of them when they’d first discussed the creature.
“Henk,” Gen replied bleakly. A world of misery in the one word.
Stella winced. That was a good reminder that other people had problems far worse than her own. “I’m very sorry it didn’t work out with Henk.”
“I’m very sorry Henk turned out to be such a heel,” Gen said on a sigh. “I only saw what I wanted to see in him.”
“That’s easy to do.”
Gen snorted. “All of you immediately disliked him. None of you were surprised that he lost his mind at the sight of Zeph becoming a gríobhth, or that he abandoned us after…” She trailed off, flushing.
“After you shapeshifted into a white saber cat and put the fear of Moranu into him,” Stella finished with a smile. “That was one of the most satisfying moments I’ve been privileged to witness.” Zeph’s gríobhth form—or gryphon in Common Tongue—tended to shock people with her golden beauty and the sheer improbability of her existence, but saber cats hadn’t been seen in centuries, and Gen had been a particularly large and astonishing example of the breed.
Still flushed with chagrin, Gen made a face. “Not a solid method for finding true love, however.”
“I don’t know. Seems like a good test to me. If he loves you as a saber cat, then he’s more likely to embrace all the aspects that make you special.”
Gen gave her a grateful smile. “Thank you. You’re always so kind.”
Not always. Jak’s furious disappointment still strummed along her nerves, and she let out a heavy sigh.
“Maybe we should go swimming,” Gen suggested, eyes brightening. “I was planning to do a bit of aerial reconnaissance, since the other shapeshifter scouts of the group are abed, probably for the day, but it would be fun to go look for the lake creature, too.”
Stella considered that dubiously, mentally measuring the size of the creature’s mouth. It didn’t look to have had much in the way of teeth or claws, but that didn’t mean it wasn’t dangerous. “We’d have to take the form of something that’s a decent size,” she decided out loud. Astar wasn’t awake to weigh the risks and make a decision as the group leader, so she’d do her best by him in his absence. “Preferably something fierce—just in case—and cold-water tolerant. There may not be ice on that water, but it’s close to freezing.”
“I have an orca form.”
“You have an every form,” Stella retorted with a laugh. Gen had more forms than anyone, even Zeph. “I can’t do that, but I can do a sea lion.”
“Yes, let’s explore,” Gen urged. “Zeph and Lena will probably sleep all day after what they’ve been through.”
“Absolutely. So will Rhy and Astar, because I saw to that.”
“Did you?” Gen’s eyes widened in interest. “I didn’t know you could do that.”
“It’s a new skill I’ve been honing.”
“Useful. So that just leaves Jak.” She deflated. “It wouldn’t be fair to abandon him to the sleepers, but he can’t shapeshift.”
“He’s sleeping, too. I just healed him, and he’ll be out a while. Did you know Rhy attacked him yesterday?”
“No.” Gen shook her head, sighing. “What came over him?”
“I don’t know, but—” Stella paused, the words echoing oddly in her head. “You said those exact words yesterday, when you became the saber cat and stalked Henk, that you didn’t know what came over you.”
“I was so angry,” Gen admitted. “Like seeing-red mad.”
“Astar has been growly, too, the bear close to the surface in his emotions,” Stella mused. “I thought it was Zeph’s effect on him, but…”
“Zeph has definitely been acting wilder. More so than usual. I thought she was going to shift into a gríobhth and disembowel Princess Berendina on the ballroom floor.”
“A sentiment I could sympathize with,” Stella said wryly. There’d never been much chance that the social-climbing princess from Jorrit would win Astar’s hand in marriage, but Berendina been determined. And her thoughts and emotions had been unpleasantly mercenary and acquisitive. There weren’t many people that Stella couldn’t find something to like about—having intimate insight into people’s heads tended to make her sympathetic, even with those personalities unpleasant on the surface—but she hadn’t cared for Princess Berendina. If the woman wanted a throne so badly, let her turn her ambitions to winning one on her own merits, not marrying into the privilege. “Jak mentioned it, too,” Stella noted. “He said he and Lena had also observed that the shapeshifters were acting a bit more animal than usual.”