Then last of all, he came back too.
He looked at her, half smiling through shuddery breaths. And so of course she saw the one thing that hadn’t disappeared yet. Those teeth, those sharp and numerous teeth, still hanging on long past all the rest of the incredible changes.
Because they’re stubborn, her mind suggested, and the strangest feeling followed. A kind of burr under her skin. A prickle, intense enough that she knew it wasn’t anything ordinary. And sure enough, there were suddenly words in her mouth that she hadn’t even known she wanted to say. But did say anyway. “Rub some on your gums,” she instructed him.
Then in answer he reached up and gingerly touched his stillsharp teeth. Like he hadn’t realized they were there until she suggested they were. “Starting to sense how to do this stuff, huh?” he said with a kind of weary but amused knowing.
And though part of her wanted to say, “What do you mean?” or deny what he was suggesting, she couldn’t. He was right, and she knew it. The prickly feeling had always been in some witchy corner of her soul, telling her what to do. Telling her what was wrong and how to fix it.
More than that, in fact. It made her shrug. “I already think I know how to make the potion stronger,” she said, and wasn’t surprised when he went with what she was trying to discuss. Because being recently wolfed didn’t really matter to him.
This did. “Honestly, I don’t think the strength of it is the whole problem.”
“Yeah, I don’t either.”
“So you can sense that, too.”
She considered. Looked inward, searching for something that would say what was true. And sure enough, there was the prickle again. Quietly working away in the background of her mind. Pushing some thoughts forward, others back.
Until finally the answer coalesced, the same way answers did for things she knew well.
“I can feel that whatever happened might need something else to make it better. It seems, I dunno. Keen-edged, like hunger or something close to hunger. Kind of like you’re missing a nutrient out of your diet. An important one that you really need,” she said, then had to laugh. “Oh god, I sound nuts.”
“You sound amazing. Like an honest-to-god witch.”
“Well, you knew I was one. You’re the one that believed.”
“It’s one thing to believe it, and another to see it start to happen.”
“And yet you thought I was being so annoying with my incredulity.”
She gave him a look, and he had the decency to nod his head likeyeah, okay, okay, I get it. And in between doing what she’d suggested—rubbing the potion on his gums—he asked, “You still want to go see, then? Wash some of that incredulity away?”
Though it surprised her how much she wanted to.
The way excitement sprang up in her, where trepidation had been.
“Only if you’re okay,” she said. But he didn’t even hesitate.
“I am. It’s gone. Heck, you probablyknowit’s gone.”
She paused, and thought. Did that inward look again.
Then sure enough: “Fuck. I do. Wow, I really do. This is so weird.”
Which got a laugh out of him. A carefree laugh, of the sort that confirmed she was right. This was the way things were now. Witch senses. Sudden werewolves. And the thing he said as he stood and helped her up.
“And it’s about to get weirder. Come on, let’s go find a fairy orgy.”
CHAPTER TEN
She didn’t know what to expect when they finally got to the supposed site of fairy shenanigans. But it wasn’t Seth telling her that they had to crawl across the ground from that point on. “They don’t like humans or any being or creature that’s humanlike,” he said before she could ask. Then just as she was about to wonder aloud if they were the former or the latter, and whether that felt weird to him, he came out with something even more alarming.
“Okay, you see that shimmer? When we go through it, hold your breath.”
He pointed, and sure enough she saw something in the air suspended between two trees. A kind of curtain, it looked like. Or a veil. Only not as obvious as those things would be. When she turned her head just slightly, it seemed to disappear. Then she turned her head back again, and there it was. A gauzy glitter, painted on nothingness. Unsettling, but sort of lovely.
“What is that?” she whispered. Then had no idea why she was already keeping quiet. It just felt like a hushed sort of moment, she supposed. And anyway, he whispered back.
