Page 34 of The Spellreader and the Phoenix

And then, with a weird shimmer and strange sense of collapsing, Rory was a little red cardinal.

Oh. Oh. They had slept in the apartment together just fine for… what, almost two weeks? Rory wasn’t putting any pressure on him at all, wasn’t claiming that it was going to be fine to share a bed and then suddenly plastering all over Max and suggesting that they might as well get one another off now that they were in this situation.

“You don’t mind?” Max asked, before he could help himself.

Weird unfolding/expanding this time (magic was cool but weird), and human Rory was standing there once more.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Rory said, sounding supremely sure. “I’m me as a bird and a human, remember.”

“Right.” Rory had said that, more than once, but Max still felt wrong-footed. “But it’s comfortable to sleep like a bird? Truly?”

Looking a little amused now, Rory assured him, “Of course. Birds do it all the time.”

Well, yeah, obviously.

Max shot him a look. “But it’s comfortable for you? You don’t ever feel, I don’t know, compressed?”

Yes, Max understood that magic was magic and conservation of mass didn’t apply, but still. Whole-ass person. Tiny cardinal.

Rory laughed, his humor infectious rather than mocking. “No, I don’t ever feel compressed. When I’m in my bird form, that’s me, and I’m not meant to be anything else. The same in my human form. I don’t feel stretched and humongous.”

Max had never thought about it the other way around. He’d always considered shifters humans who could shift into animals. Rory made it sound more like he was simply… both forms. Except he clearly kept his human intelligence, or Max was sure there would be way more bird poop around his apartment and store by now.

“Well, if you’re sure you’re okay with it,” Max finally agreed. “I’d appreciate it.”

Rory’s expression was soft. “Max, you’re the one putting up a stranger to whom you owe nothing. Of course I don’t mind accommodating you while you go out of your way to help me. I mean, I’d want you to be comfortable regardless, but I want it extra.”

Max had always found that when you offered someone an inch, they were more likely to take a mile… but maybe Rory was an exception to the rule.

“I’m going to put my pajamas on,” Max said a bit abruptly.

“I’ll brush my teeth,” Rory told him, smiling. “Not that a bird really needs their teeth brushed, but I’ll want them to be clean when I’m back in human form.”

Max almost allowed himself to be distracted. Did you wind up with morning breath if you slept as a bird and then became a human again? Was plaque forming on your teeth? Or were they in the exact same state as they had been when you changed forms?

He’d never thought about that before.

But instead of falling down the rabbit hole at this precise moment, Max headed into the bedroom, closing the door and pondering the fact that every night before this, his cardinal had always hopped around in his bed, not looking at Max as he got changed. Even when Max hadn’t known Red was a human, he’d been respecting Max’s boundaries.

Max tugged off his shirt and threw it in the hamper. Yes, days had passed where he’d thought he was talking to a bird and not a human who could actually understand him, but the more he got to know Rory, the more clear it became to him that Rory had genuinely not thought about it like that. He’d been himself, and he hadn’t quite processed how that self came across to Max.

Ten years. Max shucked his jeans and pulled on PJ bottoms and another t-shirt, this one ancient, the image and lettering cracked, half-gone, and worn soft enough that it didn’t irritate him for sleeping.

When he opened the door, Rory was seated on the couch with his book. Max passed into the bathroom, where he relieved himself and brushed his teeth.

When he emerged, Rory glanced up at him.

“Want to read for a little while in bed?” Max blurted out before he could second guess himself.

Rory’s eyes widened slightly, and then a huge grin overtook his face. He clambered to his feet. “Yes, please! Then I’ll change into Red, and you can stretch out like a starfish!”

Max rolled his eyes. “Hey, I was just enjoying actually being able to sleep in most of the bed instead of Nōwē taking over nine tenths of it.”

Laughing, Rory agreed, “It is impressive just how much space cats can take up. And, I mean, just as an observation, you don’t have to worry that Nōwē’s going to eat me. She knows I’m a shifter.”

Shifters typically weren’t bothered by other animals when they were shifted, not even by their usual predators. The theory was that they sensed the magic in some way and knew the animal wasn’t what it appeared. But there were always exceptions that led to attacks or deaths in extreme circumstances.

Rory seemed extremely confident, though, and it was true that Nōwē hadn’t made a single move against Red the whole time he’d been here. It still made unease prickle under his skin, but he’d take Rory’s word for it.