“Not to attack?” Mikhail exclaimed.
“No, or I’d already be gone. She’s still pretending to be friendly. She brought a load of wealthy shifter tourists, a few of them wanting the medicinal springs. My guess is, she’s on a spy mission, and will throw money around and chat up the locals. Bryony and Mateo are trustworthy and strong, but they don’t have a lot of experience. . .” He paused, Jen vivid in his mind.
We need our mate, came his unicorn’s thought, like the peal of a bell.
Nikos gritted his teeth. Now he understood that old saying about one’s heart being torn. He’d always thought it an exaggeration, but the need inside him, pulling him in two directions, felt like he was being ripped apart in spirit.
He let out a short sigh. “I tell you what. We could as easily go west as east, and report on our way. Only it will take a bit longer than either you or Joey, as we aren’t built for days-long flights over the ocean. We’d have to go up the West Coast to Alaska, and then over and down China’s coast, then across. I had been considering it anyway, so the girls could see more of the world.”
Bird called them to dinner then. As soon as they sat down, she asked, “Did you have a good day? After the unfortunate incident at the landside,” she added hastily.
Nikos bit down the impulse to laugh at the hasty catch—and the wistful expression on her face. He suspected that gentle Bird was at heart as much a matchmaker as Joey. But he was not ready to discuss that, not with everything so unsettled.
So he said, “Very good. This is a fine town.” To Mikhail, “I can see why you like it.”
“I would go anywhere Bird goes,” Mikhail said quietly, laying his hand over his wife’s on the table. “But I have to admit, it was very easy to settle here.”
They exchanged smiles, then Bird said earnestly, “At least Petra and Cleo were safely elsewhere when those Cang people attacked you.”
Nikos laughed. “Oh, I have a feeling the girls will be devastated when they hear there was a bit of action and them not there to do their part.”
Bird’s eyes widened. “Really?”
Mikhail said, “I expect their training on the island is much tougher than anything they’ve seen here so far. I wonder if the attractions of being inside a car might outweigh missing that scrap.”
Bird turned from him to Nikos, her wide eyes reminding him of Cleo. “You don’t have cars?”
“There are a couple of old trucks for hauling stuff, but no. Cars are pretty useless there. Most of the island’s shifters are winged, as the island is more vertical than it is horizontal. The paths are ancient trails, too narrow and twisty for a car.”
“What do you have there?”
“Goats.”
They laughed, and went on to talk about other things. Nikos volunteered to load the dishwasher as Mikhail helped Bird, who had a list of things to prep for Joey’s barbeque next day.
Promptly at a quarter to ten, the girls were brought back. At first they tried to talk over each other to express how much fun they’d had—how glorious was their first introduction to Mexican food—as their new friend stood by, grinning with an air of expectation.
Petra, the quiet one, gave up first, and Cleo exclaimed, “And Ximi took us to a mall. Where they had so many clothes!” Then she began to bounce on her toes. “And Ximi invited us to her sister’s birthday tomorrow. It’s a sleepover! Canwecanwecanwe?”
Nikos hedged, “You’ve already been invited to Joey’s barbeque, and to the writer’s group afterward.”
Two shining faces dimmed to politeness, making it clear which opportunity they favored.
Bird said quickly, “We have barbeque often. And the writers’ group doesn’t have anyone their age—why not let them go?”
Two earnest faces turned Nikos’s way. “If Mr. Joey won’t think it rude . . .”
“Oh, not at all,” Bird said with a definite air. “He does barbeques often, and many times has no idea how many will show up. The girls are perfectly free to choose this other invitation, which is particularly extended to them.”
Ximi said, “I can have my mother call you, if you like. And you have my number.”
Nikos smiled at her, realizing that whatever else his young hetairoi had shared with their new friend, they had kept quiet about the mythic realm, which the girls could use to reach him if there was an emergency. It sounded like they’d been able to differentiate what they could talk about and what they couldn’t, for both the safety of the shifter world and the humans as well.
In short, this prospective party would not only be fun, it was excellent practice for navigating in the human world. “Thank you for the invitation. Of course they can go. If you will provide them with suggestions for a gift for your sister, they can shop tomorrow morning.” They’d also need suitable clothes, he suspected—and saw from the two shining faces that he was probably on the right track.
Best of all, he realized, the girls would be sublimely happy. Which left him time for Jen . . .
She was still on his mind the next morning, as the girls got ready to venture out to the mall for gift shopping. He was about to remind them about being careful with their shifting, when Cleo opened her honey-brown eyes wide and begged to go on the bus.