Page 57 of Found in Obscurity

His grandma took pity on him. “Where have you gotten to with the problem so far?”

“The Owner said he’d look into it for me, then pointed me in the direction of the library, where I checked out a book. I’ve been making some notes.”

“Well, you were always good at reading.”

“One of the only things I was good at,” Lorin muttered. “But that doesn’t help if I don’t understand or know what I’m looking for.”

“No one facing a new problem ever does. The magic is in the discovery.”

“This is the ‘handle it on your own, kid’ tone. I do not like that tone,” Lorin said.

“Lorin.” His grandma sighed. “How many times do I have to remind you? You’re a witch.”

“You’re a better one.”

“Get to my age and then we’ll compare,” she said, heaving herself out of her seat.

“Grandma,” Lorin pleaded, following her up and grasping her weathered hand. It was the first time in so long that he’d reached for her, and it made his throat tighten. He’d missed it. “I get thewhole learning curve and independence thing, but if it’s hurting him…”

His grandma cut her eyes to Kit and then squeezed his hand back once. “I’ll be putting some feelers out in the shifter community. I still have a few contacts with some of your father’s pack. I’ll see if anyone has heard of this before.”

The relief Lorin felt was indescribable. “Thank you.”

His grandma shook her head at the gratitude. She grabbed his chin with her rough fingers. “Believe in yourself, Lorin. I always have.”

With those earthshaking words, she let go of him and hobbled out of the cabin, her raven flying after her.

Lorin let out a shaky breath.

She was rarely quick to compliment him, so when it happened Lorin knew it to be special. She said she believed in him. Now. When he was at the biggest crossroads in his entire life and clearly had very little idea of what he was doing. She said she believed in him when he felt nothing but lost and confused.

She said those weighty words to someone who was quite literally stumbling in the dark. But his grandmother didn’t lie. It was one of the hard, harsh rules she had. Honesty before anything else. No matter how painful or uncomfortable it might be.

So if she believed, he had to as well.

“Okay,” he said to Kit, who was still glued to his side. The mate talk was still swimming in Lorin’s head.

So many things made more sense now that he had that information, but he didn’t think he had the time to dwell on it at that moment. He needed Kit to be human before they could actually talk about it.

So he shuffled back to the book and his notes, side-eyeing Kit, who was huffing and puffing next to him, glaring at the pages as if they’d personally offended him.

“I know it’s slow-going, but I’m doing my best,” Lorin said.

Kit looked down at the book, then up at him, then down at the book again. His face had no real expression on it, but Lorin felt judged anyway.

With those eyes glued to him, he went back to reading, realizing that despite not actually finding anything of value, he was still enjoying the process of learning new things. He still liked all of the new information he was finding.

And despite not knowing why, he felt like this book would give him something. At some point.

Hours ticked by, the day eaten up by the creeping night. Lorin had to remind himself to eat, only because Kit was there and it wasn’t fair to starve him on top of everything else. He had a momentary crisis about what to feed him now, abruptly horrified that it hadn’t occurred to him earlier in the day when he’d set the bowl of food out without thinking. Kit was actually half human—did he want to eat raw, smelly, dead fish? Kit happily snatched the decision away from him with sharp teeth, answering the question for him.

They settled back in after that, Kit leaving occasionally to go outside and run off some energy.

Lorin could feel he was restless. It was vibrating from him and along their shared connection. It made Lorin even more determined to work this out, but with a rocky past with witchcraft and no real information on where to start looking, it was a slow process.

Lorin reluctantly turned in to sleep that night with words scrawled behind his eyelids, his mind turning over question after question with no answers in sight. Kit’s light form beside him was a living, breathing reminder of what was at stake.

It was easy to admit how much Kit meant to him now, after such a short time. He’d wormed his way into his heart between one beat and the next. What if there was more wrong than himjust not being able to shift? What if, somewhere down the line, Kit just gave out from only being able to live as half of himself?