6. Ian
“ Bedtime, Lucy! It’s bedtime, you have to come out!”
Ian had already checked all of Lucy’s usual hiding places. “I hope you were better for Darius, honey!”
“She’s okay,” Olivia said, with that half-distant look she got when she was asking her dragon for information. Ian wasn’t privy to its answer. “She’s just…gosh, I can’t tell. What does that even mean? Why is instinct so complicated?”
There were times that Ian didn’t need instinct to figure out answers. “Guilty,” he guessed. “She’s guilty about something. This is what she does when she’s done something wrong and knows it.”
He turned to find that Lucy was standing silently behind him and nearly jumped out of his skin. “You are so sneaky, honey! Where were you?”
Lucy had two fingers in her mouth, and if Ian had already suspected she felt bad about something, he was sure now from her expression. “What is it?” he asked in dread.
“Aye ake ook ees,” Lucy said sheepishly around her fingers.
“You ate cookies?” Ian guessed.
Lucy nodded. Ian felt a wave of relief. It could have been so much worse.
How do you do that? Olivia asked in his head. I didn’t understand a single word of it! She still wasn’t as familiar with Lucy’s speech as Ian was.
Ian sat down on the floor so he could look Lucy in the eye. “I’m a little disappointed,” he said frankly. “You promised you wouldn’t go up on the fridge to get them.”
“Sezzer! Sezzer did it!” Lucy pointed at the orange cat, who was a little catloaf on the back of the couch, his tail curled around to his nose.
“ Seltzer got them off the fridge?”
Lucy nodded, her eyes shining with hope.
“You had nothing to do with that?”
Lucy wilted. Definitely not nothing.
Ian eyed the cat, then Lucy, then the path to the kitchen. “Did you shift and get Seltzer to chase you up the fridge and knock the cookies off?” he guessed.
“Uh huh.”
“Did anyone get hurt?”
Lucy shrugged.
“Did you eat the cookies?”
Lucy looked anywhere else and Olivia giggled. “That one will never have a poker face,” she said in an aside to Ian.
“Am I trouble?” Lucy asked plaintively.
Olivia made a wheezing noise, but Ian was quick to assure Lucy, “You aren’t in trouble. Well, not in much trouble. You shouldn’t tease Seltzer. You knew you shouldn’t have cookies. You aren’t supposed to shift.”
He couldn’t stay mad at Lucy. She was a good kid, even if she was a handful and a half. “Let’s go get ready for bed, okay?”
Lucy looked at him appraisingly, as if trying to decide if she could get away with something more. Ian tried to look stern, and she sighed and went to brush her teeth, dragging Olivia with her.
When Ian tucked her in, she mumbled something as she yawned and snuggled down.
“Snore?” Ian guessed. “Time for sleeping?”
Lucy’s eyes popped back open. “Score!” she said firmly.
Ian chuckled. “Okay, score.”
Satisfied, Lucy closed her eyes again and gave a happy sigh.
Olivia was waiting for him in the doorway. She looks tuckered out, she observed fondly. You ready to get lucky after a nice date?
Score! Ian replied.