Shifting Selves Read Online Free PDF

and though millennia had passed, we still felt an unshakeable kinship. I might feel I lived in a state of constant chaos these days, but at least one thing never changed. When I touched the water, I knew peace.
    Gently, I moved my hand over James’s sweatshirt, picking up the residue from his sweat the day before. It wasn’t much, and if he hadn’t worn it while exercising, I doubted I’d be able to sense a thing. There was merely the hint of the water that formed his sweat, the tiniest suggestion of the being who’d worn this shirt.
    It wasn’t enough. I grabbed a bottle of filtered water from my bag and poured several drops onto the sweatshirt, letting it mingle with the dried sweat and revive it, until the water could tell me the story of the young man who’d worn the shirt. I wouldn’t be able to read it as clearly as if the sweat had never dried, but it was better than nothing.
    I let his essence fold into the tiny ridges of my fingerprints, become one with my own magic. I let it build slowly. It wouldn’t tell me what James looked like, what he’d been thinking or doing or even feeling at the time. All I could achieve, with a tremendous amount of concentration, was a vague sense of his self, that quality that made him unique despite living in a world of seven billion people.
    I waited, simultaneously breathing in the water and the scent, until I felt James’s essence form in my mind, completely separate from my own self.
    I dipped my hand in the water, sending my new knowledge through the water along the shore, looking for a match, the spot where he might have entered the lake.
    Though much smaller than Tahoe, this was still a large lake, and there was a tremendous amount of water to explore. I kept my eyes closed, refusing to allow for distractions, and I focused wholly on the secrets the water revealed. The magic encountered dozens of people, fishermen who’d dipped their hands in the water or kayakers who’d stepped rapidly through the chilly shallows, but not as many as it would have found in summer. It was still a manageable amount.
    At last, I found him, further away than I expected and weak. Still, it was enough. With eyes closed, I pointed to the spot. “There. Check there, Vivian.” I heard her move away toward the spot I indicated. If there were any recent disturbances to the soil, she’d find them.
    While she did that, I stretched the magic further through the water, looking for more evidence of James’s presence. There was a clear path from the shore, but only for about five feet. There, it ended abruptly.
    “Someone was here,” called Vivian. “Last night. This whole area is disturbed, though.”
    “Like there were a bunch of shifters tromping through, looking for a lost cub?” asked Sera, sounding irate. I couldn’t blame her. She was ridiculously powerful, but until we needed something set on fire, she was useless.
    My eyes were still closed, avoiding unnecessary distractions while following the trail, but Simon’s voice let me know he’d shifted back to human. “The prints are the same. It was one bear and one human in, I believe, size eleven shoes. Or just one shifter in both forms.”
    “James.” Will sounded pained, and I made a mental note to cut him a little slack, at least until he started calling me little water again.
    “Only one person went into the water,” I agreed. I opened my eyes at last and looked directly at James’s father. “Will, I think he did this deliberately. He set a false trail along the shore, then waded into the water, where he knew your noses would be useless.”
    A weight appeared to lift from Will’s shoulders. While a runaway teen was no cause for celebration, it still beat the other explanations for why his son was missing.
    I moved my magic through the water that undulated at the end of James’s trail, seeking an explanation for its abrupt disappearance.
    There it was. It was the smallest hint, the quickest dip of human flesh reaching out