The fairy doctor started to unwrap Hayden’s leg, glancing for just a moment towards his chest.  “This was a shifter attack, wasn’t it?  The protection mark didn’t work?”

Aaaaand now Vance was tense again, suddenly sitting upright and almost hovering over me protectively.  Hayden’s arm around my waist tightened a bit, too.

“It’s not that,” I answered quickly, before they could get upset at someone who was hopefully helping us, “I only have the magic ability to essentially apply the mark, but it doesn’t really do anything else.”

“Ah.”  The fairy doctor nodded in calm understanding.  “Normally that would be sufficient, this just happened to be one of the exceptions, unfortunately.”

Vance looked like he couldn’t decide whether to still be on the defense or not, but he slowly sank back into his chair and reached for my hand.

Since the fairy doctor was taking over with Hayden’s injury, Dr. Ling made her excuses and left him to it.

The moment she was out of the room, Skye apparently decided she couldn’t wait to confront me about whatever it was that was bothering her.

Surprisingly, it was not the thing I expected.

“You were male when you left with the boat – did you stop to shift in the water?”  She was looking at the scrubs I was wearing doubtfully, as if realizing they indicated I changed clothes, at least, the hospital instead.

“No?”  I shrugged slightly.  “I switched to female here, there wasn’t room for me to sit with Hayden if I was male and he wanted it, so….”

Skye stared at me for a moment.  “You switched…on land.”

Hayden chuckled suddenly.  “In air, too,” he announced, waving his arm dramatically, almost enough to start moving him around until Vance grabbed him to hold him still.  “It was cool,” he explained in his still drugged-out tone, whispering loudly to Vance, “just switching mid-air while jumping.  Morgan is really cool.”

“Yes, yes,” Vance patted him gently, then backed up when he was convinced Hayden was holding still.  “I know.”

“Mmm.”  Hayden smiled widely at me.  “Very cool.”

“All right, all right, shut up, idiot.”  I was blushing now, and sort of pushed his face away as I looked back at Skye, who seemed oddly dumbfounded.  “Is there a, um, problem with that?”  I asked hesitantly.  “I can switch back to male before we leave so no one notices.  The only people in here since then have been supernaturals, so I wasn’t worried about things getting out.”

“No, no,” she said swiftly, snapping back to reality at my question, “you shifted mid-air?  That quickly?”

“Yes?”  I was starting to feel like I had done something wrong.  What was the problem?  Shifting genders was normal for oceanids – was she just worried someone might have seen?

She seemed to realize I was starting to get concerned, because her face cleared suddenly.  “It’s not a problem, Morgan, it’s just – I don’t know that I’ve ever heard of someone shifting that quickly before.  Let alone on land, either.  Most of us it takes several minutes, at best, and we can’t do it out of the water.  Those with more power can shift faster – magic helps with that – but even my mother would hesitate to try to shift on land, if she ever bothered to go to the surface, that is,” she muttered under her breath, “and she probably takes at least 30, 45 seconds to shift when she’s trying to go fast.  You’re talking about almost an instant shift.”

I shrugged again, suddenly uncomfortable with the way she was staring at me or the way Vance was starting to look immensely proud.  “Shifting’s the only oceanid magic that’s ever come easy to me, I guess.  I’ve always been able to shift quickly.  I don’t usually switch out of the water, but I can, it’s not that much slower or harder than normal.”

“Huh.”  Skye looked thoughtful.  “If I didn’t know anything about your power levels, I’d assume hearing that that you would be one of the most powerful oceanids I’d ever met, which is somewhat at odds with your actual magical power.  Maybe your magic simply diverted into shifting rather than elements?  I haven’t heard of that before, but…maybe it would explain the discrepancy.”

Wait.  So…somehow instead of getting much elemental magic, I’d just gotten shifting magic?  That sounded weird.  Also less useful.  Shifting genders was mostly a convenience thing or preference thing, though it did have some practical uses.  Elemental magic, though, well, you could actually protect people, for one thing.  Shifting magic provided absolutely zero help with that.

“Not to interrupt,” the fairy doctor interrupted anyway, “but I’ve been around several hundred years and while I’m not 100% up on merfolk history and genetics – you tend to be somewhat secluded, even from other supernaturals, thanks to needing to live in the water – I’m going to have to argue that I don’t think that’s a thing.  I’ve never heard of it happening.  I did once know an oceanid that could shift quickly,” he mused, oblivious to the way Vance was now staring at him, jaw dropped open – presumably about the age thing.  “Some centuries ago, when there were fewer countries and we were making more of an effort to work together to protect what supernaturals existed, I knew an oceanid who was part of the ruling class – well, that’s probably the closest way to describe them – and they could shift almost instantly, too.  There were some jokes among our group of friends that this particular oceanid was the reason for mythologies like Poseidon, Neptune, and the like – someone with enough power to move oceans if they wanted.  Sweet person, though – not a fan of war, actually.  One of the strongest pacifists I’ve ever known, and I’ve known unicorns.  They were heavily involved with inspiring and drafting peace treaties between oceanids and other merfolk, a treaty that lasts to today – merfolk now generally view themselves as one community of all the merfolk types, and it all traces back to that one oceanid.  They rarely even used their magic, rarely needed to.”

“The last royalty,” Skye murmured.  “Before supernaturals began to all decide against theocracy.  Their bloodline was lost over time.”

“Not entirely.”  The fairy doctor pointed to me.  “You look like them – I’d place good money on you being a descendant.  Well, if I was into betting.  Which I’m not.  But you know what I mean.”

It was my turn to stare at him, jaw dropped.  “What – no, I’m not – that’s not possible.”

“It could be,” Skye murmured, her eyes oddly bright.  “If you look like them, and you have what may be a trait from them – instant shifting – and then you really haven’t accessed your full magic yet, well…who’s to say you wouldn’t potentially be a powerful oceanid when you do?”

“If,” I corrected, “and we’ve been through this, I’m not getting any more magic.”  I glanced at Vance, who had a mixture of pride and concern on his face.  “I’m fine,” I told him.  “I’m okay with it now, honestly.”  Well, working on it, at least.  “I’ve accepted it’s not something that will happen so I’m not going to stress about it.”

Vance gave me a smile and reached over to squeeze my hand.  Hayden kind of murmured something softly, too, but he seemed to be mostly asleep now.

“I’ve decided to take your advice,” I explained to Skye, “about being happy without magic.”

“That wasn’t quite what – oh nevermind.  You’re right, it doesn’t really matter.”  She gave me a smile, then glanced at Vance.  “I’m sorry we’re meeting under these circumstances, by the way.  I’ve heard some about you from Morgan here and from Bruce.  I’m glad you’re with Morgan now.”

Vance raised one eyebrow.  “You’re not bothered by us all being together?  You seemed surprised when you came in.”  So he’d noticed it, too.

“That was about Morgan shifting,” she explained.  “I already knew you were together, and I would have expected it even if I didn’t – it was fairly clear from Morgan’s initial description of you to me that you were the romantic variety of soulmates, so dating seemed likely.”

“Say what now?”  Vance’s tone was deceptively calm.

I groaned and put my face in my hands.

Skye paused.  “About what, exactly?”  She sounded cautious, like she wasn’t sure where she’d mis-stepped.

“I hadn’t told them about the soulmates thing,” I explained, dropping my hands but deliberately not looking at Vance.  “I figured they’d had the entire supernatural world dumped on them in two or three days, that much could at least wait a bit.”

“So explain it now.”  Vance had his arms folded across his chest, but when I dared look at him, his eyes were burning with curiosity and excitement, not anger.

To my surprise, the fairy doctor did it for me.

“Supernaturals sometimes have soulmates – people whose souls match theirs.  Well, I say sometimes, but probably we all do, we just don’t always find them.  Soulmates are just as often platonic as romantic – actually, more often simply as friends than lovers, really, but a soulmate is someone who essentially belongs with you in some way, shape, or form.  Because humans aren’t able to use magic, they generally can’t sense when they are soulmates with someone, but supernaturals can.”

Vance had kept his eyes glued on me while the doctor spoke.  “And we’re both Morgan’s soulmates?”  His eyes were intense, burning into me like he needed the answer to be yes.

“It’d be more surprising if you weren’t,” the fairy doctor answered as he adjusted his position over Hayden’s leg.  “Identical twins are split from the same soul, in a sense, so the souls are very similar to begin with.  It’s fairly rare for one identical twin to have a soulmate the other does not, although of course it can and does happen.  In fact,” he added after a pause to consider, “I think most identical twins are actually a prime example of platonic soulmates – your soul’s and that of your brother’s are doubtless connected by a soulmate bond like yours and Morgan’s, the only difference is, one is platonic and one romantic.”

Vance seemed somewhat overwhelmed by this, actually more by the description of his relationship with Hayden than with me.  It made sense to me, though – they needed each other in their lives just like anyone would usually want a soulmate.  They were incomplete without each other.  Identical twins were apparently born with an automatic soulmate.  That was kind of a nice thought.

Vance took a deep breath and then let it out and looked at me.  “We need to talk about this more when Hayden is awake.  And lucid,” he added as an afterthought.

“I think that’s my cue to leave,” Skye announced, but then she paused at the door as she thought of something and looked back at me, coming back closer to the bed with her face a bit troubled.  “Be careful – I know I promised to try to avoid conflict if at all possible, but I’m not sure if my mother plans to engage in one anyway.  We’ve already taken away almost all of her support, although there are some handfuls – like the pair today – that are blind followers of her still.  But learning her true nature has…given most people pause.  In any practical world, she would surrender without a fight, because she has no chance to win.  I’m becoming concerned that she may not be willing to, because she may rather die than give up her power.”

That wasn’t exactly what I wanted to hear.  “I thought that was our deal?”

“Yeeeeesss.”  She drew out the word a bit, looking more and more like she was trying to work herself up to admitting something bad.

My eyes narrowed.  “What else did you do that you promised not to?”

“Technically I didn’t promise!”  She protested.  “Bruce kind of did for me – but, um, I may have told your story about what my mother did to you and that may have been a huge reason for why people are turning now.”

I stared at her, horrified.

Skye sighed, but still seemed determined to make her point.  “At the end of the day, my mother was willing to let someone die because of her prejudice against humans.  That is what people see.  It doesn’t even matter who the victim is and what people think about you – what matters is that my mother would rather someone be dead than be soulmates with humans.  Given that probably a third of our community is related to humans and another third is at least friends with some, that’s a problem.  Her callous disregard for someone’s life can’t be ignored.”

She took a deep breath.  “Please don’t go and try to stop her.  I did try to prevent violence – still am – but like I said, this isn’t about you, it’s about her.  You’re the catalyst, but you’re not the driving force.  So please don’t go and side with her like you threatened.”

“She won’t,” Vance promised on my behalf.  He squeezed my hand when I looked at him in surprise and then pulled it to his lips to kiss my fingertips.  “Morgan, sweetheart, if she wins, she’ll hurt us.”

That stopped any protests I might have had, so I nodded reluctantly and turned back to Skye.  “Fine, I won’t intervene.  Have your challenge, but don’t let people get hurt if you can help it.  Don’t let children be left without their parents like I was.”

Her eyes softened a bit.  “I will do my best,” she promised.

And somehow, I believed that promise would be kept.