Chapter Thirty-Five A Manticore Doesn’t Change Its Tail
For a moment, everything inside of me goes blank as I try to absorb what’s happening.
There’s a part of my brain that says I must be mistaken. That no way could this possibly be what shifting feels like—what magic feels like. But all around me, people are doing things they shouldn’t be able to do. Things the school expressly forbids and stops them from doing.
It’s impossible, and yet it’s happening right now.
The burning sensation deep inside me gets worse with each second that passes, until I can barely stand to be in my own body.
“It’s okay,” Jude tells me again. “You’re okay.”
I don’t know how he can be so calm considering he’s practically in the same situation I am. Everyone else knows what it feels like to feel their power—they came here when they were freshmen and sophomores because of that power.
But Jude’s been here since he was a child. Not as long as me, who was born here. But still. My mother agreed to take him on when he was seven. And while I know he had experienced his power even at that young age, ten years have passed without him feeling anything.
So, yeah, I’m super impressed that he’s handling things as well as he is because I’m freaking out—especially every time I look down at my hands and see paws instead. Or when I glance over my shoulder and see a giant, stinging tail.
Make that a gross, giant, stinging tail. Because, holy shit, is it gross—long and scaly and black with a giant stinger on the end that looks like it can do some serious damage to anyone who gets too close. I don’t know whether to be terrified or horrified or a combination of both as it waves back and forth and curls under and over of its own volition.
I try to stop it, but somehow that only makes it worse until the thing is completely out of my control.
Jude jumps back as it slides by him, the stinger coming so close to his face that it nearly takes his eye out.
“Make it stop!” I wail, only it doesn’t come out like a wail. It comes out about an octave deeper than my usual voice and sounds a lot like a growl.
“I can’t, Kumquat. You’ve got to figure out what to do.”
“You make it sound so easy.”
“I know it’s not,” he soothes. “But it just takes practice. You’ll get the hang of it eventually.”
Eventually? How long is this lapse supposed to last? Long enough for those things writhing on his skin to cover his entire face? Long enough for me to sting him or anyone else who gets too close? Long enough for the entire school to turn completely magic?
I’m not asking the universe for an exact number here. I just need a ballpark figure so that I can calm my own shit down.
Behind me, Eva screams, and I whirl around just in time to see Jean-Luc fly across the fence, straight at us. His blond hair is streaming through the air behind him, and he’s got bloodred fairy wings coming out of his back. Jean-Jacques is right behind him, only his wings are a dark gray.
“Well, that’s the last thing you want to see in the middle of a shit show,” Jude comments quietly, and I have to admit he’s right.
The Jean-Jerks are menaces without their magic. With it…I don’t even want to know what kind of destruction these mafia fae can wreak.
As if to prove my point, Jean-Luc flies over to the nearest pecan tree and rips a branch straight off of it. Then he starts pelting us with the green nuts while Jean-Jacques laughs uproariously. Because apparently, even in an emergency, the two of them have the emotional maturity of overtired toddlers.
“What the fuck?” Ember snarls as one of the pecans bounces off her shoulder.
Seconds later, another one hits Izzy right in the face, and she pulls out yet another knife from what is obviously an inexhaustible supply.
But before she can take aim, Mozart—in her full, gorgeous, black dragon form—sends a stream of fire straight at the obnoxious fae.
It singes his translucent, bloodred wings, and he yells, “What the fuck, dragon? I was just having some fun!”
He starts to throw the entire branch at Mozart, but Izzy’s knife whirs the air at that exact moment and slices a hole straight through his right wing.
Jean-Luc screams as he drops the branch and goes into a spiral that ends with him slamming into the ground. Another quick blast of fire from Mozart and Jean-Jacques is landing right beside his friend.
Jean-Luc comes up, furious, but one raised eyebrow from Jude—who looks imposing as fuck with the tattoos creeping up his face—and they both decide to head in the other direction. But not before flipping us all off.
I open my mouth to call after them and the scariest roar I’ve ever heard in my life comes out of it. Out of me.
My mom, aunts, and uncles have no trouble talking in their manticore forms, so why do I?
Another attempt, another roar—even as everything, and everyone, around me returns to normal.
The tattoos have slid back down Jude’s neck to his chest.
Mozart and Luis have both shifted back into their human forms.
Simon’s out of the fountain and back in human form, and Remy is chilling against a tree. Ember looks relieved while Izzy looks a little disappointed. Eva never changed, either, so all four of them look fine to me.
And on the other side of the fence, I can hear the Jean-Jerks cursing and complaining as they walk back toward the dorms.
Apparently, whatever the lightning did to cause that weird power surge has worn off, and everyone has gone back to normal. Even my out-of-control tail is gone.
I close my eyes and breathe a sigh of relief. I really need to read up on how to control that thing before I shift again, because that was wild. And not in a good way.
“Everyone solid?” Remy calls as he gets closer.
“Solid’s relative, but yeah. We’re fine,” Mozart tells him.
And, somehow, despite the monsters and the lightning and the power surge, we are.
Except, when I open my eyes again, nothing looks the way it’s supposed to.
I can see the individual petals on a flower all the way across the quad. And the spots on the leaves at the very top of the trees. Plus, I can smell the flowers and the trees and about so many other things as well—including Izzy and Mozart and everyone else standing around with me.
I can hear Jude breathing and Izzy tapping her foot against the cracked sidewalk, but I can also hear the soft fall of Remy’s footsteps on the grass and the brush of Simon’s eyelashes against his cheeks.
Even the air I breathe feels funny, tastes funny—briny and fresh and green and a million other things I can’t quite identify.
It’s like my senses are all on hyper-alert—which I’ve heard is a shifter thing. That, alone, isn’t alarming. But the fact that the tail and the claws have disappeared while this has stayed behind definitely is.
I must look as weirded out as I feel because suddenly Jude is much closer to me, brows furrowed and mismatched eyes cataloging my face. “Hey, what’s going on?” he asks after several seconds.
“I don’t know,” I answer, except—once again—it comes out as a growl. Unlike the roars of earlier, it’s at least understandable, but it’s definitely not my regular voice.
Jude’s eyes widen as the others crowd around me, looking concerned.
“Everything okay?” Mozart asks, moving closer. Somehow, she looks even more concerned than Jude.
“Pretty sure it’s not,” I answer in what—again—is very definitely not my normal voice.
And now that she’s standing this close, I know she had a turkey sandwich for lunch, while Simon had tuna and Remy had a piece of chocolate cake. I definitely didn’t recognize any of that when I was talking to them earlier, but now I can’t help but notice it—and a thousand other things about them, too.
“I feel strange,” I tell them, proud of how calm I’m managing to be, “like my senses are on overload. I can hear and smell and see everything.”
Except the words don’t come out sounding calm. They come out like a snarl. Still words, but definitely a snarl.
“Oh, shit,” Mozart says, exchanging a long, concerned look with Simon.
“Oh, shit what?” I ask as my heart starts beating double time.
“Does anything else feel weird?” she asks, getting face-to-face with me so she can look in my eyes.
“Umm, my voice?” I say in what should be an obvious tone but ends up sounding like a rumble.
“Her eyes are still manticore,” Mozart says, and though she’s trying to sound calm, I can hear—and smell—the panic just below her surface.
“Is that bad?” I ask as the same panic starts shooting through me. “Am I going to hurt one of you?”
I start backing up just in case, terrified that my poisonous tail is suddenly going to resurface.
“It’s not us we’re worried about,” Luis answers as the three shifters exchange a long look.
“Don’t do that,” I plead. “Please. Don’t talk around what’s happening. Just tell me what’s going on.”
Mozart places a comforting hand on my arm even as she blows out a long breath that has notes of barbeque chips and lime seltzer water. “Don’t freak out.”
I rear back. “Nothing good ever starts with ‘don’t freak out’!”
“Don’t freak out,” she says again, more firmly this time. “But we think you’re unmeshed.”