“I don’t know.”
“What is it about me you like?” He sounded so puzzled.
“Everything. The way you think, the way you fight, the way you look at me. I like your scent. I like your eyes.” She leaned forward and brushed a kiss on his lips. “I like the strength of your arms, and how it feels when you touch me. I knew the moment we met.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because you are who you are, and I am who I am. You shouldn’t have come with me, Augustine. I wish you hadn’t. I wish you were outside. I wish both of us were outside, with Kitty.”
He reached over and took her hand. His fingers were so warm.
“How can you do this?” he asked.
“Which part?”
“Running up the hill. Killing constructs. Lifting me just now.”
She squeezed his hand. “Have you ever wondered why animals are so much stronger than us? Yes, we can talk about differences in muscle fibers and compare the number of motor neurons, but at our cores we are powered by the same biological mechanisms. And yet a bobcat who is a fraction of our size can leap twelve feet and bring down an adult deer with a single bite. Why is it we are so weak, pound for pound?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Because we don’t have to be strong?”
“Yes. We have forgotten how to be animals. We have guns, knives, clothes… Magic. But animal mages are different. We remember how because we bond with animals from birth.”
She kissed his knuckles and smiled.
“Animal mages plan very carefully for their children, because our first bond defines our personality and character. I was theoldest of my siblings, and my magic marked me as a Prime when I was born. I would be the head of the House, so my parents chose a panther. Not a leopard. A black jaguar. For the first three years of my life, I thought I was a panther. Weaker than my panther family but so much stronger than a human.”
She had never talked about this, but for some reason it felt right to tell him. She was beginning to feel the first feathery touches of dizziness.
“My brother was the second-born. My parents counted on him to support me. They wanted him to understand the importance of family and loyalty. He was bonded to a wolf. He took to it too well. He is a wolf in all but skin. Patient, cunning, and pessimistic. I don’t see him often, but if I ever called for help, he would come.
“Cornelius was supposed to bond with a bear. But he made his own choice. Instead of making a pact with the Kodiak my parents prepared for him, he formed his first bond with a fat, silly raccoon who got stuck in the chimney of the fireplace. People think raccoons are aggressive, but they are shy and timid.”
“Your parents didn’t like that, did they?” he asked.
“No. My mother decided that Cornelius was a failure. She called him a critter and wrote him off. While Blake and I learned to fight, Cornelius treated injured squirrels and sang little lullabies to abandoned kittens. I love my youngest brother so much. My childhood was grim. My parents were cold.”
“Why do you think that is?”
She sighed. “Because we learn early on that it hurts when the creatures around us die. For me, there is no difference between a bird I fed for the past couple of months and a human who worked for me for ten years. It all hurts the same. And when your children or your parents die, it hurts most of all. That’s why so many of us kill ourselves. My parents were shielding themselvesand tried to teach us to do the same. It was meant to keep us safe.”
“But you are not like that,” he said.
“No. And neither is Blake. We had Cornelius. He didn’t know how to be cold. When we were children, I would go to him in my darkest moments, and he was always sweet and kind. Being near him made me feel better. Made me feel loved. I treasured it. Then one day Cornelius stopped talking to me. We grew apart and lost touch. Later I found out that my mother had bound him to Adam Pierce, and Adam tormented him. So I confronted my mother, and that is why I’m now the head of my House.”
“Did you kill her?” he asked.
“No. She and my father retired. I think it was a relief to her. She never dealt well with the pressure. I don’t hate her, Augustine. I understand her reasons, but I reject them. When I took over, I promised myself that I would never make the same choices she made. I like to think I was a better head of the House. More human. I suppose Blake will take over now.”
He squeezed her hand.
“I have no regrets,” she whispered. “It was a good life. And I got to hold your hand at the end.”
The wall across from them exploded.
Diana jerked upright.
A small figure stumbled through the hole, slid across the floor, carried forward by her own momentum, careened off-balance, then straightened herself.
