Page 33 of Found in Obscurity

Her worry was soothing. He wanted to tell her what he’d seen, but what had he seen exactly? A shadow of a face in a barely lit room, through a mirror barely functioning because of the layers of dirt on it? A face that wasn’t there when he turned back around?

“It’s fine,” he said in the end. “I think I’m just tired and all of this is a lot to take in.”

“I understand. Get some sleep. And stop by tomorrow for lunch,” she instructed.

She hung up before he could say anything else.

Lorin let the phone drop from his hands, frowning as he felt goose bumps prickle along his spine. He looked around as if someone would be there when he turned. As if that unfamiliarface would be staring back at him again if he just looked in the right direction. The cabin was empty though, except for himself and Kit settled next to him, ears twitching and back straight.

He tried to push it away. Tried to think of happier things. Like a lunch invitation to his grandma’s that a week ago he hadn’t been sure he would ever get again. It felt like an olive branch extended between them, and Lorin wanted to hold on with both hands.

“How about we grab something to eat, hm?” Lorin asked, smiling when Kit perked up at the words.

He stood up and, followed by the forever-hungry fox, went into the kitchen to make them dinner.

He’d handle the man in the mirror another time. Hopefully.

Kit

Kit was restless for the rest of the day and into the night. He couldn’t settle for a moment. Not with Lorin’s soft voice asking him what was wrong, not with a double helping of dinner, not with the absent pets behind his ears or secret kisses Lorin didn’tthink he noticed, and not with Lorin’s sleepy breathing on the sofa.

Kit was going out of his mind.

He’dshifted.

For the first time in years he’d felt the stretch and morph of skin and bone, the vibration of his innate magic that had been blocked and stifled trickling through for just a few moments, like a cooling stream.

He’d stood at his full height, shorter than Lorin at just under his chin. His legs had barely been able to hold him upright, his spine naturally wanting to curl, his hands flexing to hit the floor. But he’d resisted it because HE WAS STANDING.

He’d forgotten what depth and color were like in that form. Forgotten his own face even.

He’d stared at himself in the dirty mirror and seen the same amber eyes blown wide with shock. Instead of a snout, he had a sharp nose, and his muzzle was two pink lips and a pointy chin.

Then he’d glanced to the side and locked eyes with Lorin.

That was all he’d had time for before he was shifting back completely involuntarily. It had hurt. Like a rubber band being snapped. His whole body had smarted from the impact and it left him dizzy for a few moments, completely reeling.

Lorin had seemed uneasy too, looking around himself like he’d seen a ghost.

Kit had wanted to groan. Wanted to shout at him that he was right here! It wasn’t to be, however. Lorin still thought he was just a familiar, and Kit didn’t know how IT had come to be in the first place.

What had triggered the shift?

It wasn’t unusual for Kit to think about shifting multiple times throughout the day. His willingness to shift wasn’t a part of the problem, the wall he met inside him that separated him from his human half was. So yes, he’d thought about shifting at the time.He’d wanted to explore the magic room with his hands and not just his nose and paws.

That his body had actually responded?

Kit had no idea what had changed.

He’d mated Lorin days ago and it hadn’t seemed to affect anything about his situation. So maybe it was the room itself?

He stopped his pacing around the darkened house and paused by the staircase, looking up the crooked steps. Power resonated from there, like it was the center of the house itself. The beating heart.

Maybe the answer lay inside.

Mind made up, he slunk up on quiet paws, glancing around himself, trying to remember step by step what he had been doing before he shifted. He walked in his own steps, touched the same things, tried to think the same thoughts with the moonlight spilling through the window.

He wasted an hour like that. Redoing. Remembering.