Page 78 of Found in Obscurity

Lorin took his time to read this note, rescanning lines as his brain processed the information and weighed it against his own expectations of himself. Kit wished he wouldn’t. He didn’t want to be another reason for Lorin’s unhappiness with his life. He only wanted to enrich it.

“Okay,” Lorin said quietly after a few minutes. “I understand. You don’t have to keep cutely glaring at me.”

Kit glared harder just for fun and Lorin chuckled, looking down at his feet as if to hide it. Kit ducked lower and met his eyes upside down impishly, delighted that Lorin didn’t know how to handle it, his face going bright red.

“You’re a lot, you know,” he choked out. “In both forms.”

Kit grinned sunnily, incredibly proud of himself.

Lorin licked his lips, his face still a little pink as he pretended to turn and concentrate on the recipe in order to ignore Kit. Kit allowed him a little grace to find his composure. Also, his throat really did hurt a lot. If there was some way to relieve that, or even make it so Kit could talk and not have to waste his shifted time writing, that would be amazing.

He left Lorin to potter around as he nosed through the magic room again with fresh eyes. He inspected everything he couldn’t reach as a fox, relishing the use of opposable thumbs in order to open various jars and pots.

Some made him sneeze. Some made his stomach churn. Some he marked to be stolen and hoarded later because they were so pretty.

Lorin wouldn’t mind.

As he entertained his spark of mischief, Lorin began grinding some dried ingredients into a powder. It smelled pungent, and he kept frowning and rechecking the recipe every other minute, as if expecting it to go wrong in an instant.

“How long has it been for you?” Lorin asked, breaking the comfortable silence between them.

Kit tilted his head as he counted roughly. It was hard to tell exactly in fox form.

Years, he wrote simply and slid the notebook onto the table next to Lorin.

Lorin gaped when he saw it, looking back up at him in disbelief. “Years?”

5?he guessed.Maybe more.

Lorin dropped the pestle with a clunk, startling and grabbing it before it fell to the floor. He appeared more than flustered by the revelation. He seemed floored.

Kit wasn’t about to downplay his own experience. It had been so long. Too long. He’d thought at times that he was simply going to give up and go mad. But something had kept him going. Thoughts of justice and family. Thoughts of a mate, indistinguishable but oh so bright in his mind.

He’d used that as fuel. In his darkest times, after every failure, those had been his comforts.

Until now.

Now comfort was finally tangible.

“You’ve been looking way too long for me to just fail you,” Lorin said.

I’d never been able to find my human shape in all that time before you,he scribbled.So I’d say it’s already huge progress.

“I wish we could work out how,” Lorin murmured.

I believe in you.

Lorin read it and snorted, which displeased Kit. He underlined the words darkly for emphasis, until Lorin had to grasp his hand to keep him from putting a hole through the book.

“I’ll get better about accepting compliments, okay?”

Kit nodded in victory and Lorin shook his head, more hidden smiles creeping over his face. They really were quite lovely.

“Is there anything else you can think of that we don’t already know? About what happened?” Lorin checked.

Kit made a face, frustration bubbling up.No. What you saw in my memory is all I know.

“That’s okay,” Lorin reassured him, turning back to the herbs and letting go of his hand in the process. “I just need to get this to a finer powder, and then we need to steep it and I need to infuse a little magic into it. ‘For some extra kick,’ whatever that means.”