Katy’s throat tightened with emotion.She saw now in stark clarity what she’d suspected before.This place was Otto’s prison, too.But for him, it wasn’t even gilded.The movies were his glimpse of how he hoped life could be.
Reaching over, she gave his hand a gentle squeeze.The scales were rough against her human flesh, and Katy found she liked the dichotomy of his tough exterior encasing a secretly gentle nature.“I understand that.Everyone needs light in their life, especially if all you’ve been surrounded by is darkness.”Katy’s brow pinched as she looked at him.“Have you always served Azure?”
Otto blinked rapidly.His lips seemed to tremble, but then he composed himself.“Damarians serve Visata.”It was the clearest and most straightforward thing she’d heard him say.“Otto not created to serve Azure, or any other than the Creator.You know Him?”
“My friend, who is now a …mate…” Katy stumbled over the word.It was still weird to her.“To a Damarian.She told me about Visata.That’s your Creator.Right?Like God for the human race?”
Otto nodded.He spoke again, but it wasn’t in English or any language that Katy had ever heard.
“Wait, Otto, stop,” she interrupted him.“You’re not speaking my language, literally.”
He flapped his little arms and then stood up in his chair, which made him eye-level with her.“I gets excited and speaks my real language,” he explained.“Visata, He created us, and He loves us.But some, likes”—Otto glanced over his shoulder at the closed door and then turned back to Katy and whispered—“likehim, thinks they are above all.They step on everything else, trample.”He stomped his feet as he spoke, and Katy watched as Otto became more animated and confident.“Crush and takes what isn’t theirs.”
“Why does Visata allow this?”
Otto blinked several times, his large, yellow eyes staring into hers.His head tilted, and he looked thoughtful.“Why does the human’s God allow bad?”
Katy leaned back in the chair and sighed.“Wow, I did not expect to get into any deep philosophical discussions today.Honestly, that is a question I don’t have an answer for, which is why I asked a lizard with his own Creator.”How many times had Katy wondered why the world was the way it was?How many times had she heard someone else ask the same thing?She looked at Otto.“You’re old.Doesn’t that make you wise?Like the wise, old owl, only in this case you’re the wise, old lizard.”
He gave her a dry look.“I lennser not lizard.”
Katy shrugged.“Is there a difference?”
“I bite you.”
“No you won’t.”Katy shook her finger at him.“Now, give me the secrets of life, Old One.Why do bad people get to be bad and prosper with their evil cackles and overflowing coffers?”
Otto sat back down.To Katy’s surprise, he took her hand, which was much larger than his.He patted it and then rested it in between his.“Visata know that this treasure, all they have in this life, they chase.Greed.Selfish.Visata is opposite of those.He is good.Pure.If you seek to be like Him, you will try not to be those things.”
“And Visata loves you when you’re doing those good things?”
Otto frowned.“No, Kat.I not valuable because of what I do or not do.I valuablebecauseVisata love me.What Azure doing, that angers Visata, but it also makes Him sad.Azure is His child, like me.”He patted his chest.“What father not hurt when child does wrong?”
Katy hadn’t ever thought of it that way.A parent, a child.The Creator and His created.How hard it must be to watch the ones you love so much hurt themselves by making choices you know are going to cause them, as well as others, pain.
“You know, you speak a lot better when you’re not around Azure.”
“Stress,” Otto said softly.“It makes harder, the words.”
Katy nodded.“Understandable.When I get stressed, words get hard for me, too.But only because I want to say unkind ones.You should know, I have a love of words.Usually, I have a Word of the Day.Since being dragged into this little human trafficking scenario, I haven’t managed to use one, but I’m going to give you one because I’ve been feeling this word ever since I met Gage.I think I’m going to crawl out of my own skin.I feel … bamboozled.”
“Your mouth broke.”Otto’s face was blank as he blinked at her.
“It means beguiled, or enchanted, or charmed, which I believe Gage, the dire wolf, has somehow done to me because I can’t stop thinking about him.I’m fighting every single, repressed, teenage girl-obsessive tendency to check my phone and respond to that text and ask why the heck it’s taken him twenty-four hours to text me in the first place.I don’t even know the freaking dude.”
Otto’s mouth dropped open, and then his scales started to change color, becoming a dark blue, which was something Katy hadn’t seen them do before.For a second, and miraculously the first time, her mind jumped to just what kind of lizard he must be—a chameleon?But wouldn’t his eyes protrude and zip around in all directions?A salamander?They change colors, right?But wouldn’t he need water?Otto snapped his mouth closed, pulling Katy from her thoughts and his scales, which had begun to change back to their usual green.
“Otto?”she asked slowly.
“Kat.”
She narrowed her eyes at him.“What do you know?”
“I knows things.In Damaria, there?—”
“Nope.Not about Damaria.About Gage.And about this crazy urge.”
“Animal magnetism,” Otto spat out.“Youanimus.You have mark of Kingdom of Fangs.You just reacting to his wolf.Popcorns!”He threw his little arms up in the air.“Good for movies.I gets all the popcorns.”The lizard jumped to the floor and hurried away.This time, she watched and saw that he climbed up the wall, twisted the knob, pulled, and climbed right out around the wall.The door closed behind him.
