Page 33 of Partridge in a Bear Tree

The partridge fainted again.

"I'm glad you found yourself," Maggie said as Penny bit back a laugh at the partridge. "I'm also glad Ashley invited us over, because I was going to have to invite myself otherwise. There's something you should know about bird shifters."

"Oh?" Penny straightened, suddenly nervous.

"Shifters tend to be big, you know that?"

Penny shook her head, and Maggie paused, recalibrating. "Well, we do. Bigger than our true counterparts. I'm not sure why, when it comes to bears and wolves and other big ones, but it makes sense for birds. That's a lot of mass to shift."

Conri blew air through his nose and muttered, "Magic. That's why we're bigger."

Maggie rolled her eyes. "Yeah, I know, Con, but it still doesn't make sense. Anyway, wolves and bears and things, they can't change their size. Conri's massive, but he's—well, show her, Conri."

Penny said, "Change their size?" under the rest of what Maggie said. Conri gave his partner a fondly exasperated look and rose, shaking himself loosely and then shifting.

The goddamn partridge woke up long enough to shriekOH MY GOD IT'S A WOLFand then passed out again as Penny gaped at what was, indeed, a wolf. The biggest wolf she could possibly imagine. Rangy and slender, not unlike Conri himself, but it turned outrangy and slenderon a wolf that stood as tall as she did was actuallyfricking massive. He had a huge grey ruff, and enormously large golden eyes to go along with appallingly big teeth and claws. Penny squeaked, and Conri shifted back tohuman, looking decidedly more wolfish around the edges than he had before. At least to her mind.

"So," Maggie said cheerfully, "that's as big or as small as he gets. Big, very big, but that's it. I, on the other hand?—"

"I saw you last night," Penny said. "You were as tall as he is. As a wolf, I mean. I mean, you as a swan were as big as he is as a wolf. Oh, God, I sound like I'm losing my mind."

"I was showing off," Maggie said with a lazy grin. "I could have been smaller. Here." She didn't bother standing up. She just shifted, and there was abruptly a swan on the couch.

Swans were not small birds, but this one wasn't as freakishly large as the one who'd been at the charity venue the night before. It was big. Bigger than Penny thought of swans as being, even if she knew they were big. But notthatbig. The swan transformed back to Maggie, who kept talking like she hadn't just taken a moment to be a bird. "That's my smallest size. Maybe a third larger than a regular swan."

"Wait, your smallest size?" Penny's head was spinning, although the partridge, thank god, was still unconscious, and had no opinions to offer. "I thought you just said shifters only…but you were smaller, so…" She stared at Maggie a few seconds. "So what's your biggest size?"

This time Maggie stood up and stepped away from the couch, eyeing the living room cautiously. "This is going to be a little overwhelming. You all might want to…"

"Move the furniture," Conri said dryly. "You can help, Maggie. You're the strongest of us."

Ashley made a sound of protest that caused Maggie to flash a grin at her. "Yeah, I know, bear. You're probably at least as strong as I am in human form and we all know you're much stronger in bear form, but?—"

"Wait, you're extra strong?" Penny turned to Ashley, distracted and a bit fluttery. The wretched partridge woke upenough to flutter, too. Fluttery wings, fluttery eyelashes. Not that birds were known for their eyelashes, but it was certainlytryingto flutter them. Penny ignored it, or at least tried to, because the idea of Ashley being very,verystrong was for some reason extremely hot. She wet her lips and swallowed, and Ashley gave her a long, slow grin.

"I'm pretty strong, yeah. We can talk about it later."

A tiny girlish giggle burst from Penny's throat and she was absolutely certain she was blushing as the other two shifters in the room laughed.

"—but," Maggie said loudly, "for the purposes of moving furniture, let's assume I'm going to be more helpful than Penny. Conri's right, we should move it. I'll put it back," she promised, and then with the effortlessness of long practice and great strength, she and Ashley picked up first the couch, then the other seating, and moved them to clear the floor as much as possible. Maggie put the coffee tableonthe couch, then sat down in the middle of the empty floor. "This is going to be startling," she repeated. "You should probably back up."

Penny, mystified, got about halfway through saying, "How big are you going toget?" when Maggie shifted and answered that question.

Immensely, enormouslyhuge, that was how big. Even sitting, even with her long neck curled down and her wings tucked in and her feet not visible under a truly incredible amount of white feathers, Maggie the swan, at her largest size, quite literally filled the room. There was clearance between the top of her back and the ceiling, but only just, and none of them, not even Conri, had stepped far enough back. The sheer size of the swan pushed them farther away, faces full of feathers.

Penny's partridge shrieked,BIG! I CAN DO THAT!and, to Penny's horror, shifted.

There was absolutely no room in the apartment for one, much less two, ginormous birds. Maggie shifted back to human instantly, while Penny gave a triumphantka-chu-CHU!call.

She was so big. She didn't fit in the apartment, either, not if she stood up. She hunched down, sitting on her feet but perking her head up, looking around, and bumped her head on the ceiling. The partridge shriekedATTACKED!and flung its wings open, trying to make Penny bigger.

No! We're big enough already!And knocking things off Ashley's walls, and knocking people over, and all sorts of terrible chaotic things. Penny pulled her wings back in, trying to shift back to human, but the partridge was hopping around, whacking its head on the ceiling and bumping back down to the floor, shoutingka-chu, ka-chu-chu!in a panic. Penny could hardly imagine what her claws were doing to the carpet. Bad things. Very bad things.CALM DOWN!

Because yelling 'calm down' at anything was, historically, an enormously successful way to get things to calm down. Penny hopped around the apartment even faster, wrecking everything she came into contact with, until suddenly Ashley was right in front of her, murmuring, "It's okay. It's okay, baby. I know, you're awfully big, aren't you? It's scary. But it's all right. Nothing here will hurt you. You know me, right? It's Ashley, your mate. Remember me, sweetheart? Yeah, it's okay."

The smooth gentle cadence of her voice sounded so much like a mother hen crooning over her chicks that the partridge's feathers began to settle. Penny turned her head, looking at Ashley from first one eye, then the other. She was very small. That was funny: Ashley was anything but small. But right now she was. Penny had to be at least eight feet tall, herself. More than that, because the ceiling was probably eight feet and her back was pressed up against it when she straightened her legs.

A thought trickled through the partridge's mind: maybe squishing up against the ceiling wasn't necessary. With some effort, it settled down, looking at Ashley from an equal height now. She still looked quite small, her entire head smaller than Penny's beak, but she smiled. "Good job, that's good, sweetheart. See, you're nice and safe. Do you think you can shift back now?"

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