“This is probably why they say you shouldn’t practice magic on yourself. Why did you want to be an owl shifter anyway?”
“I didn’t want to be a shifter.” He sounds uncomfortable. “I just wanted to see if I could do it.”
“All right. But why an owl?”
Rowan doesn’t answer, so I turn back to look at him.
“I wasn’t supposed to turn into an owl,” he finally admits.
“What were you going to be?”
He flattens his little feather tufts, agitated. “A gryphon.”
Surprised, I laugh. “What happened?”
It’s apparent he doesn’t want to answer. He ruffles his feathers again, annoyed.
“Oh, come on. If we’re going to change you back, you have to be honest with me.”
“I bought a discount feather online.”
“Are you serious?” I laugh, unable to stop myself. “You’re an owl because you were too cheap to buy from a reputable alchemy supply, and you got swindled?”
“I paid in the end. I needed to turn into a fae creature for the magic to work correctly.”
“That’swhy you’re stuck?”
“That’s why I’m stuck.”
I almost feel bad for him. “Look at the bright side—you make a very cute owl.”
He stares at me with his golden eyes, refusing to respond to that.
“Why didn’t you ask anyone in town for help?”
“I tried, but I couldn’t talk. For a couple of years, I was trapped in this body with no way to communicate.”
“Rowan,” I say, suddenly not so amused.
“It’s fine.”
But it’s not fine. I can’t imagine how terrifying that would have been. “Didn’t anyone notice you were missing?”
“They thought I left town—got cold feet a week before my wedding.”
I stare at him, my heart twisting.
“Careful,” he says, gently this time. “You’re going to make it rain again.”
“What happened to your fiancée?”
“Everyone told her it was for the best,” he says, the words weary. “That’s an interesting side effect of changing your form. You try to get people to pay attention to you—to realize you’re not what you appear. But in the end, you just overhear things you wish you hadn’t.”
A whistle makes me jump, and I whirl back to the stove to remove the kettle from the heat.
“Three minutes,” Rowan says as I pour water into the mugs.
I set the timer on my phone and then turn back. “How did you end up with Laverna?”
