Injae blew out a frustrated breath. “I’m not lying to you. Mihn found you on the savanna, Channie. She and the griffins killed the poachers, then she flew you back to Headquarters. That’s when I saw you, and you were unconscious–”

A miserable sort of triumph overcame Chan. Hah. Caught her in the lie. “If Mihn was right there, why didn’t she carry me through?”

Injae’s gaze flickered to Hanji for a moment. “She was…not fit for civilized society.”

Chan blinked, and said the first thing that came to his tired mind. “Mihn’s never fit for civilized society.” And I love that about her. By some miracle he kept that bit behind his teeth.

Injae chuckled, stroking her thumbs over Chan’s cheeks, and Chan melted a tiny bit despite himself. He was mad at Injae, dammit. But those thumbs felt so sweet and caring.

“Maybe, but this time was different.” She frowned worriedly. “Don’t you remember anything? Mihn said you were talking to her before she got you on the griffin.”

Chan dropped his gaze. “She was just a hallucination. From shock and blood loss.”

Injae was shaking her head, eyebrows scrunched. “No, it wasn’t. Mihn was really there, Chan.” She looked pained. “Gods, she–”

“I remember her having fangs and cat ears, boss,” Chan said flatly, rubbing the wrist on his broken arm. “And crying. There’s no way all three of those things could be real, okay? So stop trying to convince me.”

There was that damn glance at Hanji again. Why was the witch even here?

“Actually, your memory is exactly right,” piped up said witch. “Mihn did have cat ears and fangs. A tail, too. For combat balance, we think. And claws, of course.”

Chan short-circuited. “B-but you weren’t even there. Were you?”

“I was. Decided to crash in Anjeon instead of flying all the way home after setting up the unicorn’s shield.”

“And she was crying,” Injae added softly. Chan stared at her, slack-jawed.

She bit her bottom lip, eyes trembling with heartache. “Chan, I’ve never seen Mihn cry either. We’ve seen her angry before, but this… this was something different.”

Injae slipped one palm to Chan’s neck, the other smoothing his hair back gently. Chan loved it. “She was wailing as soon as she landed in front of the Ranger cabin,” said Injae. “I ran outside in time to see her kick the door clear off its hinges with you in her arms. I got closer, but as soon as she felt me behind her, she whirled around and her eyes… it was the same ferocity I’ve seen in mother bears protecting their young. But multiplied by 1,000.” Injae shook her head and pet Chan’s hair again.
Chan was riveted as Injae continued. “I thought you were dead at first. There was so much blood. All over you, all over her, dripping from her arms, splattered across her face and neck. She was sobbing and snarling and screaming for Briggs to portal you to the hospital, her words barely coherent. Briggs was inscribing as fast as he could.” 

Injae sighed, deep and long. “Mihn had claws erupting from her toes and fingers. When I got close to take your pulse, she lashed out at me with her hind claws and screeched. I couldn’t let her go into the hospital like that. Not when I wasn’t sure she could control himself. Not when everyone would see her as a threat. That’s why I carried you through the portal.” 

Chan felt light-headed, dizzy. It was too much, but it aligned perfectly with his bizarre memories.

“She looked at me like I was ripping out her heart and eating it in front of her,” continued Injae. “But she finally let me take you when I said you would die if she held you a moment longer. She was shaking like a leaf from holding you for so long, but that was still the only thing that made her let you go.”

Mihn had held him? And Chan couldn’t remember? What a crime.

Injae frowned worriedly at Chan, then hovered a finger beneath his nose. “Channie? Breathe, please.”

Obediently, Chan sucked in a breath. He’d stopped breathing while listening to Injae’s story. A story that he knew in his bones was true. Mihn had saved him. Had cried and had fangs and the rest…

Two questions fought viciously on his tongue for the honor of being asked first. As usual, sentiment was stronger. He spoke in a wounded whisper. “If she was so worried, why isn’t she here?”

Injae sighed and dropped a kiss to Chan’s forehead. Chan was so miserable he didn’t even twitch. It was oddity after oddity today. “She’s embarrassed, I think. Though she probably doesn’t realize she’s embarrassed.” 

Injae pulled back to look Chan in his battered, yellow-and-purple face. “Mihn has never felt those emotions before, Channie. She didn’t know how to handle you nearly dying in her arms, and she doesn’t know how to handle the aftermath of that in her own heart. And now that she knows that you made it, she has to figure out how to face you again. She’s really out of his depth.”

Mihn being so affected by Chan? Impossible. Utterly and completely impossible. It was always the other way around.

“And there’s the little matter of her being stuck mid-shift,” said Hanji from his chair beside Chan’s bed. “She probably doesn’t want you to see her like that.”

Chan turned toward the witch, resting his cheek on Injae’s shoulder. He didn’t even bother to state what he used to think was an obvious truth: that Mihn was human. Clearly, Chan didn’t know squat about his partner. 

How that hurt.

Hanji smiled brightly, deceptively innocent eyes crinkling behind his glasses. “But since I’m going to spill her secret, that’s one less thing she’ll have to worry about.”

Chan didn’t know how much space he had left in his mind for worldview-altering revelations today. But if his memory was true, he could pretty much guess. “Lay it on me.”

“Mihn is a shifter. Some kind of big cat shifter, by the looks of it, though she didn’t let me close enough to tell.” Hanji huffed and rolled his eyes. Chan felt Injae move, and suddenly Hanji was all smiles again.

“That doesn’t matter, of course. What matters is that her animal form is locked away inside her.” 

Hanji’s smile dimmed, and he spoke softly, looking straight into Chan’s hooded eyes. “That’s what I saw the first time we met. I knew right away that Mihn was stuck in her human form, and had been for a long time.”

Chan craned his neck up so he could look at Injae. “Did you know too?”

Injae nodded, the tiniest smirk on her lips. “I did. Being a magical thousand-year-old creature comes with all kinds of perks.” The smirk faded. “I couldn’t imagine having my other body inaccessible. That is a special kind of nightmare. So when she wanted to pose as a human, I didn’t out her.”

Hanji jumped in again, this time with poorly concealed excitement. “From a magical standpoint, this is fascinating. Both the initial curse that locked her animal form away, and that she seems to have broken it–though only partially–in order to protect you.” 

He ticked off on his fingers, “All the animal parts that she manifested are combat-oriented. Fore- and hind claws. Fangs. A tail for balance. Ears sensitive enough to hear enemies approach from behind.”

“But… she’s stuck like that?” Chan asked. He was so, so tired, but he was following along because this was Mihn they were talking about. Mihn, who he would always be interested in, and Mihn who was struggling with… claws?

Hanji nodded. “Whatever curse she’s got on her makes her unable to control the shift. Those cat traits manifested involuntarily, and now she can’t get them to go away and become fully human, or finish the shift and become fully cat.”

“She’s been hiding away in her apartment the last three days half-transformed,” murmured Injae. “It can’t be comfortable.”

Hanji fished a card from his pocket and jabbed it in the air. “Which is why I found the best, smartest, most trustworthy shifter witches in the country, and told her to go to them!” 

“And Mihn told you to get lost?” Chan guessed.

“In much crasser terms,” Hanji supplied, slumping into his chair with a huff.

Chan chuckled tiredly. Sounded like his Mihn all right. He wished he could have seen it. Mihn would have been a vision, telling off Hanji. 

“I want to see her,” Chan murmured tiredly. He felt rather than saw Injae gently lay him back in his pillows. When had his eyes slipped closed? “If she won’t come to me, I’ll go to her.”

“When you’re a bit more healed up, Channie,” said Injae. Her voice was a soothing breeze caressing Chan’s aching skin. “Stay until the doctors clear you, then you can go to her.”

“Yeah,” Chan mumbled. He didn’t know if he said the next part aloud or not. “And I’ll get her to see Hanji’s people.”

“Ah, Channie,” said Injae softly. Chan felt a hand brush lovingly across his forehead. “She’s lucky to have you.”

“‘S the opposite,” Chan breathed out with his last shred of consciousness, and succumbed to a healing sleep.