Bael glanced at Kett, then down at the table.

Lya frowned at the piece of paper she’d been drawing on then looked up. “Here. This describes the ritual. There’s a chant to be said, but I haven’t written it.” She paused, glancing at Striker.

“Oh please,” he said. “I got more power in my eyelashes than I could get from any bollocky kelf ritual.”

Kett held out her hand for the pad and when she got it, stared in shock.

“These symbols,” she began, and looked up at Lya.

“Tyrnan asked me about some of them. But not in the right order, not with the right…context.”

“They were on the walls of the cave. In Nihon. And…” Kett paused, and Var climbed off Bael’s lap and trotted down the table toward her, his claws clicking on the polished wood.

“And?” Bael urged.

“They were in my dream too. Recurring dream.” Crawling over Bael’s naked body. Maybe she didn’t need to add that part.

He said nothing to that, but he did get up and move to lean over Kett’s shoulder. He was very close, reading the pictograms Lya had drawn. Very close, very hot and very wrong.

Var sat in front of Kett, a small mongrel dog, tail wagging and eyes hopeful. Kett ignored him.

Bael straightened up.

“Kett,” he said softly. She kept her eyes fixed on the paper. “Kett, look at me.” Var nudged her hand with his soft, whiskery nose.

“Why?”

“I dreamed those symbols too. I dreamed you were with me, and those symbols appeared on your skin.”

Kett felt herself go very still. There was no possible way he could have known what she’d dreamt. She’d mentioned the symbols to her father but she’d told no one they’d appeared on Bael’s face and body.

Everyone was silent for a while then Striker, sitting opposite Kett, shoved Var to one side and looked at the symbols.

He laughed.

“Oh, I suppose a ritual involving painful death is funny to you, is it?” Kett snapped as Var, whimpering, leapt into Bael’s arms.

“Of course it is, pet. But what’s funny about this is how no one’s read it right.” He looked at Bael, who was holding Var, now in cat form, and stroking him soothingly. “Did your mother ever achieve this ultimate power?”

“If she had, she’d probably still be alive,” Bael said coldly.

“Right. Peck,” he addressed Lya, who scowled. “You said she was using shapeshifters and Nasc, right?”

The kelf nodded. “She got it wrong.”

This time they all stared at Lya.

“This symbol here,” she said, tapping the paper. “The Nasc interpreted it as ‘shape’ or ‘form’. But I told you-context. It has a looser meaning. They asked me to read it in Leaclii, which is the language of my tribe, but it was meant to be spoken in the ancient language. The meaning is subtly different.”

“How different?” Bael asked. Kett’s heart was thudding in her chest.

Lya chewed her lip. “In Leaclii, tvåskriva maskin krydda mittefiende formabyta.”

“Two creatures,” Tyrnan translated slowly, “two opposite creatures…who can…change?”

Lya nodded unhappily and went on. “And in the ancient language, na varda duan chimeron salasth sa fierna.”

Tyrnan gave her a blank look. The kelfs had never taught anyone their ancient language.

“Two creatures who are enemies,” Striker said, and Kett wasn’t really surprised he’d understood. “Enemies who can change their appearance.”

There was another silence.

“I don’t see the difference,” said Tyrnan.

“I do,” Bael said. He looked right at Lya, who looked right back at him.

“Kelfs and Nasc,” Chance said.

“But a kelf can only change its color when it’s a child,” Tyrnan said. “As an adult, it’s fixed.”

“Unless you’re a kelf who’s been ensorcelled by a Nasc Mage,” Lya said, her eyes still on Bael. “Your father experimented on me. Precisely what he thought he was doing when he sent me through the Wall is anyone’s guess, but I was still really only a kelfing at the time. I could still change my color.”

“The way a young Nasc can still change his shape,” Dark said.

“Whatever he did to me, it left me a mutable creature. I’m old enough to have grown kelfings of my own now, but…” Lya changed her skin color from blue to red, her hair from green to yellow, and her eyes through a spectrum of colors that made Kett feel slightly nauseous. “I can still change my color.”

“Do you think he knew?” Bael asked. “About the ritual, about needing you?”

Lya frowned and eventually shook her head. “He wasn’t terribly interested in the ritual. He said he would participate in it, because she couldn’t, not if she was the one performing it. But while she hunted down a shapeshifter, he experimented on how to send a kelf through the Wall.”

“No one else has managed it,” said Tyrnan. “Even Striker can’t do it.”

Striker snorted and lit up a cigarette in a manner that suggested such a thing wasn’t even worth bothering about.

“But no one else who’s tried it was a Nasc Mage,” Bael said. “That’s the thing. A kelf and a Nasc have never teamed up like that before.” He turned to Kett. “Do you know what this means?”

“You’re going to stop beating up kelfs?”

“No. Well, yes, but I mean-they don’t need you anymore.”

“Aye, but they don’t know that,” her father put in.

Kett rubbed her aching shoulder. “A great comfort. Thank you.”

She paused for a moment and looked around the table. She was tired. She was depressed. She was in pain. And she wasn’t needed.

She shoved back her chair, knocking it into Bael, and stood up.

“Right then,” she said. “I’ll be off.”

She hadn’t gotten three paces outside the room before Bael caught up to her.

“Kett, wait.”

“Fuck off.”

“No, listen.”

“Fuck off.”

“Kett-”

“Fuck.”

“Please.”

“Off.”

Var, all of a sudden a full-grown tiger, leapt in front of her. He filled the wide corridor, his eyes like solid amber, his tail swishing.

“I’ve fought tigers before,” Kett said.

“Yeah, and see how that worked out?” Bael moved to stand in front of her. “Kett, just listen to me a minute.”

“No. Your ritual doesn’t need me. You can’t possibly have anything to say to me.”

“My ritual-” Bael began, teeth gritted, but he calmed himself. “Look, you and I know the ritual doesn’t need you, but Albhar doesn’t. He’ll still be after you.”

“I can take care of-”

“No one, in this state.” When she started to protest, he interrupted again. “Have you even been able to change your shape since you got here?”

She folded her arms and glared at the floor. “I haven’t tried.”

“Try.”

“Fuck-”

“Albhar put an enchantment on you so you couldn’t. I can lift it.”

“I could get Striker to do that.”

“For what price? Just stand still a minute.”

Kett narrowed her eyes. “You could be putting a mojo on me.”

Bael looked at her with terrible sadness in his eyes. “You don’t-” he began, and broke off, sighing. “You never trusted me, did you?”

“I never trust anyone.”

“Why, Kett?”

“I don’t have to explain myself to you,” Kett snapped, and attempted to push past him, but Bael caught her arm and yanked her against the wall, pinning her there with his body.

“Get off me or I’ll rip your throat out with or without the help of fangs,” she spat.

But Bael spoke in some other language, something lyrical, and Kett felt the same sensation she had when Striker had freed her from the spell the first time.

No, not the first time. She’d been freed from this spell once before that. She’d heard those words once before.

Her skin rippled, changing to fur, feathers, scales, her fingertips growing claws, shrinking again, her whole body reveling in its flexibility. Bael, never letting up, watched her from a distance of about six inches.

“I’ve heard those words before,” she said, holding up one hand and slowly turning it into a tiger’s paw.