She made her way to the hook mostly by memory, groping around until her hand lit on it. Then she almost immediately dropped the key. It was like she’d forgotten how to have hands.
She tried to croak, “Sorry,” at Logan, but only a breathy rasp came out.
She walked to his cage, feeling the strangeness of being back in this body. Two legs, two arms. No tail. A gun at her hip. Weaker eyes, weaker ears. A wingless back.
When she felt this unsteady on her feet—and when she was still a little worried that Sebastian might crash in at any moment—all that weakness didn’t feel too good. But: hands. Hands were a considerable asset, especially when it came to opposable thumbs.
Hands let her feel around for the lock. They let her open up Logan’s cage.
Hands let her set him free.
For the first time, there were no bars between them.
*
LOGAN STEPPED OUT OFhis cage.
He noticed everything, right down to the way the ground outside his cage was cooler against the pads of his paws. He could feel a distant draft that he’d never been able to pick up on before. And even though his cage had been roomy by most standards, this was the first time in months when he had really felt like he couldbreathe.
But all of that came second to Iz, who looked like she was about to fall over. She was holding herself upright, one hand clenched tightly around one of the bars of his cage.
He had wondered, off and on, what it would be like to see her in her human form again, now that he actually knew her. He had never imagined that when it finally happened, it would be too dark to make much out,andhe would be too distracted with worry to register anything other than the fact that this wasIz.
He felt a tiny bit of resistance from his hellhound as he tried to shift back, but he yanked at an imaginary leash, pulling the hound up short.
It’ll be easier to get through the tunnels if we’re human-sized,he told it.And we need to unlock the animals’ cages and set them free too. And Iz needs us. We can help her better as a person than we can like this.
It backed off immediately.
Help her, it agreed.
And thanks,Logan said, feeling like that was woefully inadequate after everything his inner animal had done andtriedto do for him this whole time. He had spent so much time fearing his hellhound’s dominance over him that it wasn’t until now that he really understood what Iz had meant about it keeping him alive and sane.I know you did the best you could to look out for me.
It licked his hand, and he concentrated on that sensation and everything it implied. They were one, but they were also two, and he needed that bit of separation, that reminder that they could interact with each other and that therewasa human version of him inside him somewhere.
There.
He found himself. It was like falling down, tumbling back through all the months Sebastian had had him and landing hard in a body he’d almost forgotten about.
He had shoes. He had an innate sense of balance that let him stand on just his hind legs—on hislegs, period. His sense of smell was ridiculously blunted. The darkness in the cavern was suddenly darker and more oppressive than ever, and Iz was just a light glimmer in all the dim.
He wanted more dragonfire to come along and flood the cave with light, just so he could see her. He ached for it, especially since being human again meant his hellhound’s telepathy was no longer in play.
“Hi,” he said.
Iz put a hand on her throat, like she needed to hold it together. “Hi,” she rasped, and he saw a flash of her smile.
Logan had no idea what to say. His mouth seemed to be operating independently of the rest of him. “It’s good to sort of see you. –No,” he added, as she started to reply. “You don’t have to talk if it hurts. As soon as we get out of here, we can get you tea and cough drops and—”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. Her skin was cool and silky-smooth, and Logan’s throat dried up.
God, he wished he could see her better.
There are lanterns in the walls,his hellhound insisted.You’ve seen Sebastian light them. You know there are matches here.
I do, but it’s not going to be easy to find them in the dark.
Then again, finding them would make it a lot easier to get all the animals freed and be sure none of them were lurking back in the corners of their cages. The idea of accidentally leaving one of them behind because it was shy or scared chilled him to the bone.