Nikos said mind to mind, I wish we could introduce you to the island from above, but it’s too close to dawn.
She tried to hide her pulse of regret, but before Nikos could speak, Bryony cleared her throat. “What about Keraunos?”
“Oh, he’ll sniff out that our scent has gone cold soon enough. We can expect to find him prowling around within a day after Medusa sends a private plane to fetch him. But now he’ll be on our turf.”
At that, shoulders tightened. Postures straightened. Definitely martial artists, Jen thought, as a beam of golden sunlight touched the top of a column—and once again her body shivered and shifted. It didn’t hurt—it was more like her skin blurred oddly, then every muscle itched and stretched at the same time. Her sight narrowed, she lost that extra color she couldn’t name, and between one blink and the next, her point of view rose a couple of feet.
She swayed for a second, then the disorientation was gone. She stood there in her running shoes, borrowed clothes, and her jacket. Shifting was getting a little easier.
She turned to see that Nikos was now a coal-black stallion with a pewter sheen, his pearly horn catching highlights from the rising sun. He backed away, his hooves striking sparks from the stones of the mosaic. There was something primeval about the ancient columns, the mosaic, and dominating them all, the wild and splendid winged unicorn.
His thought came, We can still give you a tour.
“I’d love a tour,” she exclaimed. “But how?”
Ride on my back.
“Can you take my weight?” she asked doubtfully, looking down her length.
Nothing easier. I’ve borne grown men.
“Well, they probably weren’t much heavier than I am,” she said, and stepped close.
He w
as about to ask if she needed help mounting, but she vaulted onto his back in a way that caused Bryony to give a crow of admiration and approval.
Tuck your feet under my wings, he said. Hold onto my mane—no, it won’t hurt.
His wings gave one a sharp crack, like a great sail snapping open, and he leaped into the air. Jen felt her stomach drop, then exhilaration replaced that weird sensation as Nikos sailed out over the lower castle, gliding in a way that had become familiar to Jen in her day as a phoenix. She knew instinctively that he would never let her drop.
Then, amid a thunder of wings, the gathering of hetairoi shifted and leaped aloft. Jen looked around in sheer amazement at the variety of shifters, some soaring high, others low, in what she began to realize was a formation, and no one fouled anyone else’s wings. To her left was a pegasus, a pretty roan mare. To the right, a human face caught Jen’s eye, and she realized from studying mythology years ago that she was seeing a lamassu, a winged bull with a human head, long beaded dreads flowing around his serene face. She recollected reading that lamassu were protective spirits, like stars.
Flying next to him was another with a human face, a manticore, with a lion’s body and a serpent’s spiked tail. A little behind them flew a nue night-bird: a striped tiger in front, fading into a long, curling serpent’s tail. She was held aloft by enormous bat wings. A third was almost all dragon, except for a rooster’s head—a cockatrice.
Flying highest and fastest was a boibhre, a huge silver-blue cormorant—right next to Petra’s graceful wind horse.
Cleo’s hippogriff hovered, as though to reassure herself that Jen was all right, then with a flirt of her wings, she took her place in the formation.
Mateo and Bryony flew to either side of Nikos, like an honor guard. Mateo was a griffin—not unlike Cleo, but with a lion’s back end instead of a horse. His eagle head had blue-black feathers below a white crest. Bryony was a huge bat, a kama-sotz; Jen remembered the name because the name of the creepy planet Camazotz in Madeleine L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time had been taken from the mythic creature.
They banked, and the sun caught in brilliant shards over the steel feathers of a minokawa, flying above a peryton, an antlered eagle.
The hetairoi made an amazing sight, flying in perfect formation, their colors glowing in the morning sun. Jen was so exhilarated by the hetairoi that she forgot to look down until they were banking around another rocky mountain. They were high enough by then for her to make out the shape of the entire island, which was a crescent with the two ends lost in scintillating mist. It looked about the size of Rhode Island, if that had a couple of gigantic mountains at either end.
She caught sight of the main city, built around a natural harbor shaped like a horseshoe. Almost all the buildings were white, except for the tiled roofs of blue or red.
They banked again and headed for the castle. She sat back, loving the wind in her hair, the swoosh of wings, and how the hetairoi banked and dove, soared and turned as one, precision flying that had to be an inspiring sight from below.
I could do this forever, she thought. She was so caught up in the thrilling flight that she was startled when Nikos’s chuckle reached her. Fly as much as you like—the others will show you the areas to be avoided. I’m going on an inspection tour.
They landed, and everyone except Nikos shifted to human again. As they laughed and bantered, she smoothed his mane, admiring him but wishing he could be human, too.
We’ll fix it, he promised. With his words came memory of their single kiss.
Then he took off. Jen watched, her lips tingling as she smothered a smile.
When he vanished around one of the towers, Cleo took her hand, and tugged. “Come,” she said. “Now that we’re all human again, I’ll introduce you to everybody!”