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accelerating through the open gate. “Human forms feel weak to her.”
    “She loses strength when she changes?”
    That would seem odd to a lupus. “It’s a matter of innate abilities versus learned skills. Shifting her coloring, now, that’s innate, like those colorful lizards you have here. The ability to change her entire form is innate, too, but she has to have a pattern to copy, and she can’t edit those patterns. She has to use all or nothing.”
    “So if the person she copies has a mole, she will, too?”
    Nathan nodded. “This form isn’t as fully human as it looks, which is why her sense of smell remains good. That’s one reason she likes this form even if it does feel weak to her. She retains a few things regardless of her form. Her blood stays the same, as does her cells’ ability to hold magic. Kai thinks she must retain her brain structure, too. She thinks the same way no matter how she’s shaped.”
    “Huh.” Cullen thought that over briefly, then shook his head. “Her brain must transform to some degree. The skull’s a different shape.”
    Nathan shrugged. Cullen wanted details he didn’t have.
    “Go fast,” Dell said suddenly. “Heal Kai.”
    “Wait a minute,” Cullen said, looking at Nathan. “You can heal? Someone other than yourself, I mean.”
    “Not me,” Nathan explained. “Dell. She can do it with Kai because of their bond, and it’s really body magic, not healing. The result is the same, but it takes a lot more power.” Which Dell had now, thanks to the Queen’s gift, though she still stayed near the node much of the time, saving the gem’s power for an emergency.
    Nathan used to think that the mage who’d originally created the familiar bond in Dell had been a touch crazy. A chameleon seemed a peculiar choice. But the obvious drawback—Dell’s need for magic—turned out to also be a plus. That need had caused her species to develop the ability to store an enormous amount of power, which could be drawn upon through the familiar bond.
    The other plus was her body magic . . . and what that meant.
    Most mages didn’t take familiars because the risk outweighed the benefits. The death of a familiar would, at best, magically cripple the mage for days or weeks. At worst, it killed. The reverse was true, too. Dell had survived the breaking of the familiar bond with her mage when she was hurled to Earth when the realms collided at the Turning, but she’d been in bad shape by the time Kai found her. She’d used up her vast reserves of magic, and her hunger had been deep and terrible—and not just for magic. She’d been so alone. So very alone.
    Until Kai. When the familiar bond broke, it didn’t go away. Some combination of Dell’s knowledge, Kai’s Gift, and the mystery of affinity had made it possible for Kai and Dell to anchor the raw, bleeding end of that bond in Kai. Later, that bond and Dell’s frantic need to keep Kai alive had made it possible for the chameleon to use her body magic to save Kai’s life . . . body magic that operated instinctively, rebuilding according to whatever pattern Dell had. The pattern she had for Kai was of a thirty-year-old human woman in excellent health.
    No one knew exactly how long chameleons lived, but Dell’s lifespan would likely be counted in centuries, not decades. Which meant, Nathan thought smugly, that Kai’s likely would be, too.
If
she didn’t get herself killed in some mundane or uncanny fashion that Dell couldn’t fix in time. “Dell, has something else happened to Kai?”
    “Bug bites. Blood. Go fast.”
    “Can’t go very fast on this road. I’ll speed up when we hit the highway.” Dell hated it when Kai bled. Blood was food and life to the chameleon. Still, her level of anxiety bothered Nathan. Kai might downplay an injury to keep him from worrying, but she wouldn’t outright lie about it. Could she be hurt worse than she realized?
    “Bug bites,” Cullen muttered. “How does that make sense? The