Page 19 of Killian
“I don’t think I know half of the words you just said. I know, uh… fairies. And dryads. And selkies.”
“Bleh. I hate selkies. They’re the spaz’s of the sea.”
They stared at each other.
“That sounded like I’d met selkies, didn’t it?” asked Moira.
“It kind of did,” said Killian. He paused and then rubbed his nose as if he was feeling awkward. “Did you mean to imply that they were disabled?”
Moira stared at him. Was he asking if she was slamming handicapped people? Her first reaction was to be angry and then defensive and then she decided she was just confused.
“No, I meant idiotic with the attention span of a gnat. Where’d you get disabled?”
“Spaz. As from spastic.”
Moira scratched her head. She was still confused.
“OK? But what does that mean? I mean, I get that it means someone having a spasm, but I’m guessing that isn’t what’s being implied.”
Killian nodded and his frame relaxed. She hadn’t noticed how carefully he’d been holding himself until the tension left his body. He’d been nervous to bring it up, but he’d still done it. It wasn’t a big, flamboyant gesture, but Moira found it impressively courageous all the same. Sometimes smaller conversations were harder to have than a fistfight.
“It technically means someone with a disability that makes it difficult to control their muscles, but it’s used as an insult for people who are mentally and physically disabled. It’s probably used most in the UK and Australia or places where they’re the main influence on English?”
“Huh. Maybe that’s like the European version ofretarded?We don’t say that. I mean, polite people don’t say that. I had to explain that one to Grandpa too. Not that he used it. He was still usingimbecileand had somehow missed the entire invention of the R-word as a word for mentally disabled—apparently, he didn’t go out much in the 80s. When I told him, he said the 80s were a mean-spirited decade and that proved it.”
Killian laughed in surprise.
“This freaks me out that I know these things but can’t remember the sound of his voice, but now I’m afraid to stop talking, or the memory will go away.”
“I will remember that you have said it and remind you,” said Killian softly, putting a hand on her arm, and Moira drew a breath of relief at his reassurance.
“I also don’t remember meeting selkies.”
“Well, you’re the one with the letter for the librarians,” said Killian. “Maybe that’s because you know all about magical things. Maybe we’re on a magical mission.”
“And maybe there is no magic, and that was just a mutant bug, not a sprite,” said Moira.
“There’s a path over there,” said Killian, jerking his head. “I bet it leads to that little building. Let’s go find out.”
The building looked like a little shrine. And at the center were more bookcases full of scrolls behind locked grates. But there weren’t any elves, sprites, or anyone else. There was a small fountain, and they at least got a drink, but then they went on. After what felt like hours, the light was as bright as daylight, and Moira could see the roofs of more shrines poking above the foliage.
“I’m beat,” said Moira, “and starving. Let’s go to that shrine up ahead and at least take a break.”
“Agreed,” said Killian. “Also, I think one of those pillars might have some sort of fruit on its vine. I might give those a go after we find a place to camp out for a bit.”
“I have the feeling I’m going to miss the bed in our study hall,” said Moira plaintively.
“I missed it an hour ago,” said Killian. “Not the geckos or the bugs, though,” he added.
“Definitely not,” agreed Moira.
They tromped down the path toward the shrine. This one looked more Japanese, but she didn’t think she was an expert enough to say definitively. They rounded a corner and Moira an enormous lizard, bigger than the geckos, nearly elephantine in size in the middle of the path, and it rearing back to snap at Killian.
Fear jolted through Moira like a lightning bolt. She needed to move faster. She needed to be stronger. She needed to protect Killian.
Moira was almost sure that she felt her spine separate, but she didn’t have time to think about that because now she had claws, and now she was strong, and now she would kill that thing that wanted to hurt her mate.
Moira roared and charged as Killian threw himself forward in a diving roll. The jaws of the lizard snapped, narrowly missing him, but Moira did not miss. She slashed out with her claws andsnapped with her jaws. The lizard trumpeted in terror, wheeled around, and plunged into the jungle at a run.
