"So . . . what have we learned, children?" Kyrie said, in a singsong voice, as she dressed herself, in the chilly bathroom. "We've learned that shifters piss."
She and Rafiel had gone all over the aquarium. Much to her chagrin, she had confirmed Rafiel's smelling of a shifter around the aquarium and up the stairs to the little observation area over the shark tank, where the smell became far more intense, as though the shifter had lingered there.
But that was all she'd learned. The only thing she could contribute—as she walked out of the ladies' room, to met the again-human Rafiel, outside his bathroom—marked salmon, according to some bizarre logic where all salmons were male, she guessed—was, "I could smell it strongest in the ladies' room."
"Really?"
"Really. So I'm guessing that shifters piss," she said, with an attempt at a smile.
But Rafiel frowned at her, as though lost in intense thought. "And that it's a female."
Kyrie immediately felt like slapping her forehead. It hadn't even occurred to her. "Or that. Or of course, it comes in after hours and isn't sure whether it's shad roe or salmon. Not that I can blame him . . . er . . . her . . . it there."
This got her a very brief smile. "I'm more worried that it lives here."
"What do you mean . . . Oh. You mean one of the sharks?"
He nodded. "I tried smelling the covering to the tank at the top, where they open to feed them and to go in and clean, but couldn't smell anything. Hell, the smell through half of this place is faint. But I think I detect a trace of whatever it is they use to clean the aquariums with, and I wonder . . ."
"But wouldn't they go nuts, staying shifted and in the aquarium the whole time?" Kyrie asked.
Rafiel shrugged. "I have no idea. Truly. You see . . . sometimes I think that if I lived somewhere in Africa, I'd just walk out one day into the savannah, and become a lion, and never, ever, ever change back."
Kyrie stared at him, shocked. She'd always thought of the three of them, Rafiel was the best adjusted. He had a family who knew what he was and collaborated in hiding him. He had the job he wanted to have, the job he'd dreamed about as a little boy. If anything he'd seemed in danger of being conceited and full of himself, not lost and full of doubt. But as he said those words, she felt as if he'd undressed. His expression had for a moment become innocent and vulnerable, making him look like a confused young man faced with something he couldn't understand nor deny.
"Never mind," he said, and managed a little smile. "It's just sometimes it's so hard being both, you know, living between worlds. I've tried to be human, and I can't—not all the time. And it just occurred to me, if I could just be a lion—be a lion all the time and stop . . . stop thinking like a human, stop caring about what humans think . . . it would be easier."
There were many things Kyrie wanted to say. That she understood—though she wasn't sure she did. She relished her rationality too much to let it go in exchange for a promise of simpler thinking. That she felt for him. That she could think of what it all must mean to him. But instead, what came out of her lips, was, "There's always the zoo."
As soon as she heard it, she was afraid he would be offended. And that was a heck of a thing to do to him, anyway. He'd just revealed an inner part of himself—at least she didn't think he was playacting, though with Rafiel, it was sometimes pretty hard to tell—and she'd answered with a joke.
To her surprise, he gurgled with sudden laughter. "Oh, yes . . . But if I couldn't control the changing even then, it could get a little embarrassing, no? Not to mean dangerous, right there in the feline enclosure."
"Yes," she said. Then changed the subject quickly. "But you think one of the sharks might have done it?"
Rafiel shrugged. "It still doesn't make any sense, does it? I mean, they get fed, as sharks. Why would she . . . or whatever . . . feel a need to come out and push humans into the tank?"
"Perhaps she has a taste for human flesh," Kyrie said. "Or perhaps there was someone who saw her shift, and had to be eliminated."