There’s nothing I can do, Adon thought. All right…

  He looked glumly at Samson, who continued to emanate pretty lights as he changed—the little spider’s body was clearly but very slowly growing larger as his Evolution proceeded—and Adon wondered what else he could do to pass the time, since Goldie had refused any help.

  Then he thought about the Adaptation he most wanted to master, and the way he would spend the next hour or so was obvious.

  Adon began practicing Transformation.

  Focus, he told himself. Focus on the shape you want to take.

  His body understood the task he was demanding of it more intuitively this time than it had before. The pain was more bearable. Perhaps it was just his imagination, but there also seemed to be less of it—as if his body had realized that this task was supposed to be one of its functions, not something that should cause its owner pain.

  After only a moment, his wings and spines perceptibly began to change shape.

  They twisted and deformed—not so painfully this time—and combined. Adon’s flesh made only a slight crunching noise as it flexed in its new shape. He felt the movement of the joints of this strange new, endoskeletal limb that now used the majority of his flesh.

  Adon quickly saw the pale, fleshy skin he recognized from previous attempts at Transformation—his body forming the shape of a human hand from the material it possessed.

  This was a triumph.

  He knew that immediately. His body had not been able to make a convincing humanoid hand before. It had been horribly painful, the end product had looked like an over-inflated rubber glove, and he had been forced to break the Transformation almost instantly once he formed the shape. It was as if his whole being was rebelling against what he was trying to do—or saying, You can’t do this!

  This time, the hand was still an inhuman skin tone—so unnaturally pale and completely bloodless that no one would mistake it for the hand of a human of any race Adon had ever encountered.

  But every other detail was amazingly right. The hand had weight and substance. There were internal bones, and they bent in the proper directions. The hand’s form and function were aligned. It was much better to look at.

  Still…

  Adon knew that he was not where he wanted to be with this ability yet. He had made a single appendage, not even a whole limb. Even that little bit of progress had taken effort, ongoing expenditure of Mana, and continuous application of willpower.

  This just isn’t right. I don’t know what it is, it’s just not right.

  He made a snap decision and allowed his wings and spines to snap back into place suddenly. Adon was not getting very far, trying to turn himself into a human-sized, human-shaped creature. He wasn’t even making much forward progress, though he had practiced in the time when he had been in the palace, whenever he was alone.

  He suddenly thought that maybe he was going about this the wrong way.

  Adon focused on a different form that he thought might be more manageable, and somewhat to his surprise, his body obeyed immediately. Maybe he had stretched his capabilities a great deal by using Transformation so much in his everyday life, or maybe it was the repeated efforts to turn himself into a human whenever he was alone.

  Practice makes perfect, he thought as his body shifted again. He could tell that things were going better now.

  The Transformation was astonishingly smooth and quick this time. Every part of the task was easier. The whole thing was much less painful—almost painless, in fact—perhaps because the changes were smaller. Holding the mental image in his mind was easier—probably in part because he was not hampered by pain. And the changes to his body were less radical.

  Spines, legs, and exoskeleton twisted, deformed, changed shape, reoriented themselves—but at least his wings remained the same as they always were. They were the most sensitive part of his body, he knew, and the most easily subject to damage.

  The process unfolded very quickly.

  Practice makes perfect, Adon thought again, though he had never tried this exact Transformation before.

  He flexed and stretched ten fingers, on two hands, this time. This was delightful.

  He extended his arms in front of himself—because, yes, he had arms now. He gave his arms and hands a good look. His fingers were still pale, but they were a skin tone that was conceivably possible in a human being again. His arms were thin, pale, and hairless, but they were humanoid arms, with elbows and everything.

  I even have neatly trimmed fingernails, he thought, head swimming with euphoria.

  “I can’t believe I did it—” Adon clapped a hand to his mouth mid-sentence.

  I spoke. I spoke out loud. Oh Goddess—I have a real mouth again! A real, human-like mouth. And a voice! I could talk without intruding into other people’s private thoughts now! Assuming I’m willing to spend a lot of time in this form, which I have to admit is a big if. It’s a little bit demanding on my energy.

  Though he had to admit, this form was less demanding on his energy than the ambitious project he had set for himself to start with.

  I can’t believe I have a human voice again.

  In a very real sense, it felt like Adon had reclaimed a part of himself. Something he had not even realized he was missing. An element of his humanity.

  His fingers that had moved to cover his mouth tentatively plumbed the space between his lips. With his finger tips, he touched, and then began counting, his teeth.

  This is absolutely silly, Adon told himself.

  Tears beaded in his eyes. Silly tears, perhaps, but tears nevertheless.

  “I can’t believe I succeeded at using Transformation this way,” he said aloud.

  Then he frowned.

  That voice isn’t quite right.

  Adon adjusted his mental image of the form, and he felt flesh adjusting slightly. His mind was powerful.

  “Testing, testing.” His voice had deepened to its usual low tone. The sound of his voice from when he was human—and the sound that everyone who had heard his Telepathic voice associated with him.

  He made a note in his mind that this version of his vocal cords and voice should be the model for future Transformations.

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  “So simple,” he mused. “I put myself through so much pain trying to do it the other way. I’ll still have to figure out how to make the other way happen, but I wish I had tried this version sooner. It feels so good to make progress…”

  Adon looked down at his body, still obsessed with his new shape. He had a normal pair of feet, long slender legs, male human private parts, a flat stomach—what he wouldn’t have given for that in his last life—and a flat chest, unmuscled but not flabby.

  And I could imagine myself an even better body next time, if I wanted to, he thought greedily.

  He stopped fantasizing about buff pectorals and hard gluteal muscles as he suddenly wondered what his face looked like.

  Had it turned out as well as Adon imagined—as well as he had envisioned?

  The face was the most important thing in some ways. It was the single feature on another human that a person assessed first. It carried trustworthiness, attraction, and emotion.

  Adon suddenly wished he could see himself in a reflecting pool of water. Alas, he was in the middle of a forest, with no water source visible nearby. He had never learned water magic, though he had no doubt that discipline existed somewhere.

  I’ll just have to wait. Even as he reconciled himself to that idea, though, he felt a smile taking over his face.

  It was so good to be able to smile again.

  The solution to his problem had been so simple, albeit imperfect.

  Instead of using Transformation to somehow stretch his tiny butterfly body into a full-sized human form, he had envisioned himself turning into a quasi-humanoid figure of roughly the same size as himself.

  This body definitely had more mass than Adon’s regular body did—especially considering that he still had wings on his back—but creating mass, however he did it when he used Transformation, was much easier when it was a smaller amount.

  So, Adon had done it. He had shifted into a human form. He stood at just under a foot tall. Incredibly large for a butterfly. Very small for a humanoid.

  His mind jumped back to his mental image of the Transformation.

  I probably have elf-like facial features, he thought. Maybe it’s best that no one can see this right now. He imagined that his ears were probably pointed. Adon had only limited imagination when it came to how tiny figures should look, especially when he assumed that they would have butterfly wings.

  If I have pointy ears, that’s a little… Hm. He wasn’t sure if he liked that look or not. He really needed to see it

  “Still, either way, this is amazing!” Adon shouted at the top of his lungs and threw his arms back, then grimaced as he punched himself right in the middle of his wings.

  Those things are really sensitive, he thought. When I do this again, I should probably change their position on my back a little and make them a bit smaller, so I won’t accidentally hit them while I’m fighting or performing other tasks.

  He wondered if this would be a good form for fighting in—and then he froze.

  Adon heard the sound of something crashing through brush nearby. He frowned.

  Whoever or whatever the interloper was, it sounded big. His probably-pointy ears stood up as he tried to pinpoint where the intruder was located. His eyes widened as he recognized from the increasing volume that it was getting closer.

  Should I go back to butterfly mode? Float away from ground level so I don’t get pinned and crushed by whatever’s coming? No—his eyes turned back to Samson’s still rainbow-glowing form—can’t forget my brother. He’ll attract attention if I leave him here.

  Adon flitted over to Samson. His wings, he observed, were as quick and skillful as ever. He used his new arms to grab Samson up. His brother’s still relatively small body fit neatly into his arms. And then Adon fluttered up into the tree.

  He kept moving up in height until he found a branch that was too high for any land animal short of a giraffe or elephant to reach, yet with a good view of the ground. Adon wanted to know what had scared him away.

  There, we’re above ground level. Come on. Show yourself…

  The creature must have been slightly further away than Adon’s ears detected. That was the only way he could account for the long delay in between what he heard and what he saw, at first. He was not used to having human-like ears anymore.

  Then the beast came stumbling out from between the trees, moving slowly, clumsily, smacking into tree trunks hard and frequently, damaging itself further with every step it took.

  It was a stag of some sort.

  Adon would normally have been happy to encounter easy prey like this, but there was a problem. The stag already suffered from a giant wound. At first, the butterfly could not see exactly what it was, only that the stag was bleeding drastically and making it worse by repeatedly bumping into trees.

  But as the creature shambled closer, Adon saw what he thought was a great bite out of the middle of the stag’s back.

  What did that? he wondered. Will it come to finish the job?

  As Adon was contemplating what could have done this to the stag, the beast collapsed only a few feet away from the tree. Its eyes were wide open, and it tried to rise to its feet again, but it couldn’t get its hooves under its body properly. Soon it ceased trying to get up. Its chest rose and fell. Then its body slowly stopped moving completely.

  Nothing else followed.

  What in the world was that about? Adon thought, slightly agitated, turning his head from side to side.

  He allowed his Transformation to lapse. It was only burning through energy and would not make it any easier for him to defend himself right now.

  Adon kept turning back and forth, keeping a lookout, waiting for something to come out and drag the body of the stag away. Instead, it just slowly continued to bleed. The dead brown eyes seemed to look up at Adon reproachfully, as if to say, You could have done something for me. How dare you stay up there while I’m dead down here?!

  Well, I’m not going back down there, Adon thought in response. You’re not lulling me into a false sense of security.

  A moment passed, and he wondered again where the predator responsible was.

  Adon reactivated Telepathy and sent out a quick message.

  Goldie! Are you all right over there? There was a dying deer that walked over here…

  His telepathic voice trailed off as he realized that he didn’t really need a specific response. He just wanted an answer—wanted to hear her voice.

  There was nothing.

  Adon waited to hear his friend’s voice answering his call, and there was nothing.

  He looked at Samson—his brother, Goldie’s son—and Adon’s body stiffened. There was nothing he could do for Goldie right now. If she had run into trouble, she was either unconscious or dead. Otherwise she would respond to his messages. If she was all right, she must be out of his range, or he had broadcast his Telepathy in the wrong direction.

  Adon turned and repeated his warning, more coherently this time, in every direction around him, as loudly as he could.

  Goldie! I saw a dying animal just now. Something wounded it. Please respond! Goldie!

  There was still no response.

  I can’t go after her, Adon thought.

  No matter where he might put Samson, the little spider’s continued glowing in multiple colors would naturally attract a predator. So many creatures were naturally drawn to light. And in his current condition, Samson could not defend himself even from a spider slightly larger than himself. He was totally unresponsive, which fit with Adon’s own experience of Evolution.

  Hurry up and finish, bro! Adon thought angrily, desperately. We have to check on your mother…

  But Evolution would not be rushed.

  Adon stood there and watched Samson’s light show—the emanation of colors continued, though they slowly dimmed with time—for hours, until he had almost despaired that his younger brother would ever complete his Evolution.

  At a certain point, Adon even began to despair that Goldie would return. He had hoped that she would come back sometime soon after the wounded animal laid down and died. He had imagined that she would walk up, completely oblivious to his efforts to warn her. Whatever killed the deer probably wasn’t targeting spiders and butterflies. Right?

  He went back and forth with these worries, but ultimately, they led nowhere. He kept coming back to simply staring at the glowing, slowly growing, spider. Samson was almost as large as Goldie when Adon met her now—which was impressive, considering that he was a male—and the slowly growing form and ever-changing rainbow of color had a hypnotic quality. It was much more relaxing for Adon to get lost in the visual than just to think about his missing friend.

  Then the lights suddenly dimmed completely.

  Adon focused on his brother again.

  Something was happening.