The person who seemed most likely to be able to give her an answer was, unfortunately, Kav, still sitting at their feet. Cela nudged him with her toe. “What’s wrong?”
“My tattoo felt different,” Kav said, low. He looked up at her, scowling. “Just for a minute, but now ...” He looked as if he was going to say something else, probably an accusation, but then, looking past her, he saw Peyton. Abruptly he scrambled to his feet.
“What theheckis wrong with all of you guys?” Peyton asked.
The Eldest spoke from her rock. One of her hands rested on her tattoo. “You have changed the magic.”
“Us?” Cela asked blankly.
The two elders who had been staring at each other abruptly clasped hands. “Mates,” one of them said.
“Mates,” the other echoed, and her wrinkled face split in a smile. “I’m glad if it had to be someone, it was you. Of course it was you.”
“They have mates now,” Tyr breathed. “Real mates. True mates.” With an arm around Cela, he looked around. “No—it’s not that they didn’t before, it’s that they know who theirmates are. Something in the island’s magic was blocking it, and that’s gone now.”
“Do you think it’s ... it’sallgone?” Cela asked quietly.
“Don’t know.” He smiled down at her. “Guess we’ll have to wait until we run into a human who doesn’t know about us, so we can try to blurt it out and find out.”
Cela looked around at the assembled griffins. Some had taken off immediately to fly back to the island. Others appeared lost in each other’s eyes. As far as she could tell from those she knew, the newly discovered mates were all mated to each other by the island’s customs—at least most of them. Perhaps fate had its way of making itself known, after all.
She finally looked back at Kav. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Peyton the whole time.
“Kav,” Cela said, comprehension dawning. “Is she?—”
“I—I need to go back. The covert needs me.” Without saying any more, Kav shifted and leaped from the rock. It took a moment for him to catch the wind on his injured wings; then he flew off, skimming above the waves, moving as if hellhounds snapped at his heels.
Peyton, clearly baffled by his abrupt departure, gazed after him in mingled confusion and dismay.
Cela looked around to see that the Eldest had crossed to their rock pillar, shifting so smoothly Cela hadn’t even noticed her. As a griffin, she was snow white all over. She shifted human once more and stood leaning on a cane decorated with sea glass and beads.
“I do not know if you’ve done us a great service or a terrible wrong, young griffins,” she said quietly.
“Me neither,” Tyr said, but he kept a tight arm around Cela. “Well, you can’t separate us now, anyway.”
“I never tried,” the Eldest pointed out. “I am pleased forboth of you. Even so, I suggest you don’t return to the island just now.”
“I don’t want to,” Cela said. She leaned against Tyr’s side. “I just want to go home.”
With Tyr injured and Cela tired from the previous flight, Lirin carried Peyton on the flight back to the mainland. They landed at the headland, where Peyton slid off Lirin’s back.
“That guy was your ex, right?” she said to Cela, as the griffins shifted to their human forms. “What was wrong with him?” She looked a little wistful. “Will I see him again?”
“You might,” Cela said. If Kav had been seized with the same compulsion that drew her to Tyr, wild orcas probably couldn’t have kept him away for long, even if he was wrestling with his new reality. “I can’t explain to you everything that you saw today, but you must understand it’s vitally important you don’t speak of it to anyone.”
“No, of course not.” Peyton looked out to sea for a lingering moment, as if captivated by something beyond the horizon.
Lirin was fussing over her brother, and Cela, feeling guilty, turned to see if Tyr needed her assistance. But he was fending off Lirin’s attempts to look at his wounds, which had already sealed up with shifter healing.
“I’m fine. He didn’t hurt me badly. I just need to get some food in me.”
“I think we all do.” Cela slid her arm around his waist, having to overcome a slight hesitation ingrained into her by all those weeks of holding back. But there was no problem this time. Her arm settled there as if it was meant to be. “Lirin, do you want to come with us? You’re probably tired,and we can buy you lunch. Or ...” She looked up at the angle of the sun. “Dinner, maybe. It’s a long flight back.”
Lirin shook her head. “I shouldn’t stay away too long. There may be unrest on the island. The enforcers will be needed to keep order.”
“I don’t think we’ve done anything that hadn’t been needed for a long time,” Tyr said.
“Even so. My place is there, not here.” She kissed him on the cheek and hugged Cela. “Send me pictures of my nieces and nephews. I want to get to know them, and perhaps visit them someday.”
