“Not too close,” Dani called. “If you fall in, I’m not jumping after you.”
“I’ll shift and get her,” Arthur said without thinking.
They both looked back. Aurelia brightened, and Dani’s mouth pressed briefly flat.
“Pier,” Arthur muttered. “Let’s walk the pier.”
The boards creaked under their boots. Aurelia walked ahead, arms out for balance, peppering him with questions.
“How old were you when you first shifted?”
“Thirteen.”
“Did it hurt?”
“Aye.”
“Did you cry?”
“No.”
“Liar,” Dani said.
“You weren’t there.”
“But you told me about it afterward.”
He grunted. Aurelia cackled.
“Can you smell any fish?” Aurelia demanded.
“Yes,” Arthur said. “Mostly halibut.”
“That is so cool.”
She trotted ahead to poke at a frozen rope coil with her boot.
Silence settled between him and Dani, heavy but not empty. Wind whipped at her curls; she crossed her arms against the cold.
“Is this weird for you?” she asked, eyes on the water. “Walking around like this. With us.”
“Aye,” he said. “Weird. Good and bad both.”
“Veryyouanswer,” she muttered.
He rested his hands on the rail, watched the chop of the bay. The words had sat behind his teeth for years. Either he spat them out now or he never would.
“When you left,” he said, “I searched for you.”
She froze, every muscle stiffening, her eyes resolute on the distant water.
“I made it as far as Montana when I lost the trail and had to turn back. You did well.”
“I left a note,” she said, her voice almost robotic.
He huffed. “Aye, and I ignored it at first. I couldn’t understand why you’d left in the way you did.”
“Really?” she asked, whipping round, her eyes a storm. “I would have thought it was pretty damn obvious.”
