Apologies, buddy,said Norris silently.I’ll never doubt again.
Accepted, replied his Dunkleosteus.So long as we celebrate the Feast of the Seven Fishes.
Done,replied Norris.
“Hey, Merlin?” Annabeth said. “Norris said you were one of the Defenders who could show me your shift form inside.”
Merlin glanced at Norris. “Did you tell her what it is?”
Norris shook his head. “She said she’d rather be surprised.”
Merlin’s blue eyes glittered with mischief. He picked up an empty mug, set it down on a low coffee table, and said, “Watch this!”
He spoke loudly enough that the entire party stopped chatting and watched. Merlin leaped acrobatically into the air, and plummeted down on a direct collision course with the mug and the coffee table. At the last instant before he would have hit and smashed everything, he vanished. A tiny black thing landed in the mug.
“What...?” Annabeth gasped.
A tiny black head popped out of the mug, followed by a pair of tiny clawed arms. The gecko-sized velociraptor leaped out of the mug and posed on the coffee table.
“Is that...?” She knelt down to peer at the little creature. “That’s not...”
The velociraptor grew to the size of a kitten.
“It is!” Annabeth exclaimed. “You’re a velociraptor! A size-changing velociraptor! How big can you—”
Dali, Roland, Pete, and Carter spoke up at once. “Don’t ask that!”
The kitten-sized velociraptor leaped off the table and grew to size of a small human. Annabeth walked around him, examining his claws and his eyes and his sleek black skin. Norris took the opportunity to join her. It was so fascinating to be able to get a close look at an extinct creature.
“No feathers,” remarked Annabeth. “Guess we’ve been wrong about that.”
“I’m not sure that we are,” Norris said. “The raptors are partly defined by size, and Merlin can change that. If he’s the size of a chicken, like a real velociraptor, does that make him a velociraptor? If he’s seven feet tall, does that make him a Utahraptor? I think Merlin’s really his own thing.”
The sleek black raptor became Merlin again. He said, “That’s right. I wouldn’t take me as an example of what a velociraptor was really like. I’m not like Norris, who does turn into an exact version of a Dunkleosteus. Me and the other Defenders are a bit more... experimental. None of us recognized our mates at first sight, for instance. We had to fall in love first.”
Merlin’s sunny smile faded as he seemed to catch sight of something off to the side. Norris followed his gaze, and caught Roland, the Defenders boss, with a stark expression of utter heartbreak.
A split second later, Roland picked up the mug Merlin had landed in, saying, “I’m taking this to the sink before someone drinks out of it.”
There was nothing in his face or tone but a mixture of wry amusement and mild disgust, making Norris wonder if he’d imagined that glimpse of devastating sorrow. On the other hand, Roland was the only Defender who had no mate.
Merlin went on, “Or, well, that’s how it’s seemed to work so far. Anyway, you two can study me as much as you like. And if you’re extra nice to Pete, maybe he’ll let you study him too! I think he’s an excellent example of a prehistoric bear. Shifted or not.”
“Hey!” Pete said.
“I’ll give you my employee discount if you do,” Annabeth offered. Then, more seriously, she went on, “I have to say, I’m jealous. I know there were major, major downsides to how you all became shifters, but I can’t help wishing I could be one.”
“I get it,” Merlin assured her. “I love my raptor!”
“And I love my Dunkleosteus.” Norris put an arm around her. “I’d share him with you if I could.”
“You can,” came Kerenza’s voice.
Norris jumped. The witch had come up behind him, Blossom trotting at her heels. The fat little manticore stared at him with its yellow eyes, the slotted goat-like pupils narrowing.
“He can?” Annabeth asked. A wild hope was in her voice.
“Sonny boy here isn’t like the Defenders. He was meant to be a minion, so those wizard-scientists—pah!” Kerenza mimed spitting on the ground. “—they didn’t put the same restrictions on him. That’s why he was able to recognize his mate at first sight. And unlike them, he can turn you the same way most other shifters can.”
