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“The first Change is hard,” Griff said quietly in his deep, burred voice. “Even when they know, even when they are prepared for it.”
Emma turned to face him, afraid of what she might find. Dismayed by what she felt for him. Still.
He stood just inside the doorway, watching her in the dark, his eyes gleaming in the light of the single candle. Animal eyes, she thought.
“I was not prepared,” she said.
He winced. “No.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
He cleared his throat. “There was no time—”
“You had weeks.” Her voice rose on the word. She was almost shrieking. If she were not careful, she would start screaming, and then she might never stop. She gripped her hands tightly together at her waist. “Weeks of me living here, teaching here, talking with you—”
Loving you, she thought but did not say.
“You should have told me,” she finished bitterly.
“Aye.” He shifted, as if he were suddenly uncomfortable in his big, graceful body. “But I wanted you to stay.”
Oh. A fissure opened in her heart.
She ignored it. She didn’t want to fall into that chasm, into the emptiness and the dark.
“Where is Una?” she asked. “How is she?”
“She is well. As you can see.” He moved aside from the door, and Una, bright-eyed and pale, rushed into the room and flung her arms around Emma.
Almost, Emma recoiled. But this was Una, a child, not a monster. A pretty adolescent who stumbled over fractions and flirted with Iestyn and had lent Emma her comb.
Her arms came up automatically to embrace the girl as Una turned her head against Emma’s chest, her arms tight around Emma’s waist.
Emma found it difficult to breathe.
“The first time is hard,” Griff repeated. “They—we must generate our skins from within ourselves, the first time. But the change becomes easier with practice.”
Easier for whom? Emma thought.
As if he heard her thought, Griff’s mouth tightened.
“I was glad you were there,” Una said against Emma’s dress front.
Emma stroked the girl’s dark curls. “I’m glad, too.” Remembering the child’s screams, how could she feel otherwise? And yet…“I wish I had known how to help you.”
“You held me. And the warden brought me back.” Una looked at him, her eyes shining. “The land beneath the waves…It was wonderful.”
Emma had a sudden, uncomfortable vision of Griff’s big body crowding Una into the sea.
Griff met her gaze stolidly. “The young ones need a guide the first time out. The call of the sea is strong in us. They must learn to find their way back to Sanctuary and human form.”
They must find their way back.
Yes.
Only sometimes the things said and unsaid, the spoken lies and unuttered promises, formed an insurmountable barrier.
“Sometimes,” Emma said, with a catch at the heart she refused to acknowledge, “there is no going back.”
