The Shifter Read Online Free PDF

you a message.”
    My chill returned. “Is she okay?” If she got into trouble because of me, I’d throw myself to the crocs right there.
    Enzie nodded. “She wants you to meet her at the pretty circle at three. Under the tree.”
    The flower gardens. Tali had called it “the pretty circle” when she was four. We’d had picnics there and sat on a soft blue blanket under the biggest fig tree I’d ever seen.
    “What’s going on, Enzie?” Tali had never been sneaky before. She either spoke her mind clear or didn’t speak it at all.
    “I don’t know.” Her green eyes looked away and she sucked in her bottom lip.
    “You can tell me.”
    “I don’t know, honest. But I’m scared anyway.”
    I leaned over and hugged her. Poor girl. She was only ten. She had talent, even if she couldn’t use it for two more years. It hummed in her like the shimmy of a bridge when the soldiers marched over it. “It’s okay, Enzie.”
    She sniffled and clung to me. I rubbed her back in small circles. The fancy man kept watching. I stared at him hard, putting a dare into it, though I couldn’t say what the challenge was.
    Whatever he saw in it, he declined. He turned and walked away.
    I hugged Enzie tighter, suddenly just as scared as she and not knowing why.

    I walked the full three miles across Geveg to the gardens, on the opposite side of the island from Millie’s. Though the gardens were public property, they were inside the aristocrats’ district. Powdered women with pearls braided into their black, piled hair glared at me as I headed for the gates. Baseeri soldiers stood watch at all four entrances and kept out the folks aristocrats didn’t like seeing—which pretty much meant everyone who wasn’t from Baseer. They weren’t supposed to by law, and sometimes you could talk your way in if you looked clean and sharp and didn’t mumble your request, but nobody went in carrying a clothes basket. Squatters were not allowed under any circumstances.
    She’d picked a lousy place for a secret meeting.
    I dipped a sock into the lake and washed as best I could, then hid my basket under a leafy hibiscus bush not far from the eastern entrance. Clean? Somewhat. Sharp? Not at all. At least I didn’t mumble.
    The soldier watched me walk up. I didn’t slow when I neared him, making it clear I planned to go inside and did it often.
    “Pardon, miss.” He stepped forward and held his arm out across the walk, looking a lot like some of the trees that grew inside. Tall, wide, brown, with a mess of gold on top. Unusual to see a blond Baseeri. Most had glossy black hair that shimmered in the sun like raven’s wings. But he also had the Baseeri sharp nose and chin. Maybe he looked more like a bird than a tree. Or a bird in a tree.
    “Yes?”
    “Your business here?”
    “I’m meeting my sister.”
    He looked me over, and reluctance flashed in his dark eyes. Kindness too, if I could make use of it.
    “It’s her birthday.”
    “I don’t think—”
    “Our parents used to take us here every year for our birthdays.” The truth popped out on its own and I couldn’t stop talking. “We’d walk down from the terraces, and if the wind was blowing just right, the whole bridge would be covered in pink flowers. They’d fall like rain, and the air smelled so sweet it made your eyes water.” Mine were doing it now. I hadn’t thought about those birthday trips in years.
    His stern expression wavered a little, then he dropped his arm and nodded. “Go on in. You tell your sister Good Birthday.”
    “Thank you, I will.”
    The gardens welcomed me back. The cool, green-tinted shade kept the rest of the city out, and the air smelled exactly as I remembered. No carpet of flowers this time, but the grass looked thick as a rug and softer than any bed I’d slept in for a long time. Branches above shook as monkeys chased one another through the treetops, whooping in high-pitched frenzy. I passed under arches of brown, and the trees whispered in