The shadows partially shielded the approaching figure’s face from view, but Adon was familiar enough with his gait to recognize exactly who was walking toward them without even needing to look directly at his head.

  Frederick, Adon sent. Good to see you.

  It was for lack of anything else to say. He had no idea why the young lord was approaching them. Frederick’s mind was blank as to his intentions, but he did carry a satchel at his side that Adon did not recall having seen there before. It had a lumpy shape inside it.

  What brings you over, Frederick? Goldie sent—more direct than her friend, as always.

  “We are setting up camp down a bit further in the cave,” Frederick replied. “The men are getting tired and hungry. Fortunately, a few of the more resourceful knights managed to snag some food. We will not need to dig into our rations for now. That is also what brings me over now.” He patted the satchel at his side and stepped closer once more, and Adon suddenly smelled it.

  That bag—it’s full of meat, he thought.

  Frederick set the satchel down.

  “High level beasts are good for you guys to eat, right?” Frederick asked. He opened the satchel, and Adon saw what appeared to be the back half of a lion. Then he noticed the feathers around the place where the body had been bisected.

  Right, of course, it’s one of the griffins… Adon did not say anything to Frederick. He felt a little bad about this, but he was absolutely interested in—even excited about—eating griffin meat. These were some of the strongest creatures he had ever encountered. Even though they could not use magic as far as he had seen, they had been the first beasts he had ever met besides the Mystic Iron Bear that could resist magical attacks to any significant degree. They were made of tough stuff.

  Thank you very much, Frederick, Goldie sent, filling the silence. That is correct. We grow stronger with every significant hunt and subsequent meal, and the latter works even if we were not responsible for the hunting ourselves.

  Frederick was not the only one giving out information, Adon thought to himself. Not that this had any potential to be harmful to him or Goldie. Telling Frederick that they benefited from strong prey to eat had apparently led him to giving them the most powerful prey he could find. And it was not as if Adon and Goldie had specific weaknesses to reveal.

  Yes, thank you, Adon agreed.

  “My pleasure,” Frederick replied. He gave them a small smile. “Since we are setting up camp for the night, we will probably be starting fires to cook and keep warm. If and when that happens, you will both probably want to be on the other side—” He pointed his thumb behind him, in the direction of the knights—“where the smoke should be less thick. We expect it to drift this way, as the tunnel slopes gradually downward.”

  Of course, Adon sent.

  Is that how smoke works? Goldie sent to Adon only. He could not quite tell if she was joking or not. She was a spider, after all, with few memories of anything human.

  “Anyway, enjoy the food, and if I do not see the two of you down there, I will return and give a warning when we are about to light the fires.”

  Thank you, Adon and Goldie sent in unison.

  As Frederick walked away, Adon reflected that the brothers were far more different than he had realized. And the first impressions he had come away with, in their first meeting—what felt like a long time ago now, though it was only a matter of weeks—that Frederick disliked mystic beasts and that William was a decent guy, had almost reversed themselves.

  Will you take us down, Adon? Goldie sent.

  He realized he had just continued fluttering in midair, holding the spider far above the food on the ground. Adon set down directly on top of the hunk of griffin, and despite it being larger than either the butterfly or the spider, together, they set to work and devastated it with their respective mouthparts.

  It was some of the best food Adon had supped on in his life—perhaps the best ever, besides the Mystic Iron Bear.

  Slurp slurp. Guzzle guzzle. Gulp.

  Before he knew it, Adon had slipped into a feeding trance.

  He only came out of it when the half-corpse of the griffin was reduced to nothing but skin and bones—and found himself sucking marrow out of a broken chunk of rib bone with his proboscis.

  That was nice…

  Adon had the sudden, ridiculous thought—Wait, what if Frederick poisoned the food?—then dismissed it just as quickly. The thought of it would have been impossible for the young lord to suppress as he passed the food to Adon and Goldie. Then again, it could have been a gift from William that he simply asked Frederick to pass on…

  I am ready to go back to the others, Goldie sent. You?

  I would like a little more time, Adon replied. Not that you have to stay. I just want some time to practice Transformation.

  Ah, I understand, Goldie transmitted, sounding as if she understood all too well. You want to practice for the Princess…

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  There was a little note of teasing in her voice, and Adon felt obliged to deny it, even though he felt ridiculous.

  It’s not about that, he insisted. Transformation is useful! Have you practiced it at all? You do have Transformation, I remember you’ve mentioned…

  Actually, I have not tried using it, Goldie admitted. Maybe I should. Could you demonstrate?

  Sure, Adon replied. It would be better not to practice entirely alone anyway.

  He focused as he always did when he used Transformation, and his body quickly—and far more easily than it had any of the first several times he had tried—morphed and shifted, expanded and made up for the empty spaces where he did not have enough mass with mana.

  The process felt significantly smoother and less draining than it had previous times when he had done it, and Adon wondered if he had gotten another big boost in power when he consumed the flesh of the griffin.

  As he contemplated the changes that had taken place in his Transformation process, Adon was conscious that he was succeeding. His body was taking the form he had repeatedly envisioned, in the size he had striven for over weeks, with far less struggle and pain than he had experienced before. The wings disappeared into the humanoid body this time, unlike in his fairy-adjacent form. It made him less complex. Easier to maintain. It was his body’s way of making the Transformation more efficient.

  He flexed a muscle in his bicep—a muscle that had not existed ten seconds before.

  Yes, I just needed to be stronger, he thought. Yes! Not that I’m as nervous now as I was last time I tried this, but with how smoothly this is going, I can’t imagine that just losing a bit of focus would make me snap back to normal again.

  It took him a minute to shape himself and the clothing that he wanted to surround his full-sized humanoid form.

  But it felt worth it. The results spoke for themselves.

  Goldie looked up at Adon and let out a low, telepathic whistle.

  Is this an enlargement of your other Transformation? she asked. It looks very stable. Impressive!

  Adon could feel the desire in his cells to return to his normal form, but he forced his body to function properly, made himself nod. He also responded with the vocal cords that he once again possessed.

  “I think it gets more stable every time I use it,” he said. He smiled at the sound of his own voice. That was the only thing about his last life he had wanted to keep, and it was there, even more perfect and resonant than it had been in his smaller form, his usual deep intonation.

  Everything was satisfactorily responsive to the butterfly’s will so far.

  Let me try something, then, Goldie sent. She sounded excited.

  Adon saw her body quiver all over, and he felt a twinge of worry for his friend.

  It’s painful the first few times you try it, Adon sent, resorting to Telepathy reflexively. Don’t try to do too much this time. No humanoid form. Just small changes, all right?

  He thought the spider nodded, but it might have just been a spasm of her body. She shook noticeably as he watched her. Her body, already near the size of a manhole cover, expanded, both the center of mass and the limbs lengthening.

  This continued for roughly ninety seconds until Goldie shuddered a final time and stood still, flexing her elongated limbs and twisting her head back and forth as if she had some terrible crick in the space that connected head and thorax.

  The butterfly turned human surveyed his friend’s shift.

  Way better than my first Transformations, he assessed without a trace of envy. He could feel that despite how effective it looked, the actual pain it had inflicted—and continued to inflict—on the spider was at least as serious as he had experienced in his most dramatic early Transformation attempts. The sharp ache radiated telepathically. It was not quite as bad as Adon had felt when he first tried to inflate his body to human size, but significant enough that he was impressed that Goldie remained in the slightly new shape she had shifted to, rather than reverting back. His friend was now a much larger spider, a bit more than twice her previous size.

  It was not a massive change, at least not on the level of Adon’s, but he thought that no human would want to make an enemy of her in this shape, even without knowing that she was magical.

  With her limb length, he guessed that she was about as tall as an average ten year old child now, if she could somehow stand up on her rear legs and stretch her front legs upward while the child did the same thing.

  How do I look? Goldie sent, her inner voice tired.

  “You are terrifying,” Adon pronounced, smiling with the lips he was still not quite used to. “No one would want to mess with a spider who looked like you do right now—or even run into one in a dark alley!” He raised a hand to the side of his head and ran a finger through his short, straight hair, then touched the pointed tip of one ear, as he spoke. It was fun just to semi-consciously play with these physical features that he did not usually have. “I’m impressed that you were able to change your size so dramatically on the first try.”

  I am just glad that I listened to your advice and did not try to shift into human form, Goldie replied dryly. This is very taxing.

  “Don’t put pressure on yourself to maintain it,” he said. “Remember that it gets easier as you get stronger, so every time you eat something strong like the griffin. Transformation is harder than it looks, but it’s, um—” He shifted to Telepathy.

  I think it’s very impressive to the humans that we can do it at all, he sent. Possibly also important to them, depending on exactly what Frederick is talking to you about…

  Goldie nodded again, although it was difficult once more to be certain that it was not simply a shudder. Her whole body felt unstable to the butterfly-humanoid as he watched her, like the cells were desperate to go back to their normal size and shape.

  Then he felt it. A reverberation through the air from the release of Goldie’s willpower. It was tangible in his mind, like someone had just snapped a rubber band next to his ear. The sensation was so sharp and sudden that he almost released his own Transformation at the same moment. Instead, it was just Goldie, instantly collapsing back into her usual size and shape.

  Then Adon sensed Frederick returning—the young lord’s mental processes, like anyone’s, had a distinctive feeling to them that was recognizable even without listening to specific thoughts.

  As the young man’s silhouette came into sharper focus, Adon watched him.

  It took a couple of seconds for Frederick to blink and adjust his vision to the relative shift in lighting, moving from one section of tunnel to another, but when he did, his eyes widened.

  “Who are you?” the young lord asked.

  Frederick’s body shifted into an on-guard stance, one hand raised to strike while the other gripped the hilt of his sword.