At the edge of the ocean, Chamille sucked in a breath as Cole untangled a pure white horn from his belt.

Mistake had told the teens that the horn would summon their ride to the shift's strange fortress, hopefully leading them to their friends. Chamille had her own gift: a vial of Siren's Tea to use in an emergency. What it did and how helpful it would be she didn't know.

Yet.

"Ready, Mille?" Cole asked her.

Chamille felt her face go slightly red. "Don't call me that!" She snapped, blowing a strand of long, brown hair out of her face. Being the master of form, she could change her appearance at will, but her cheeks refused to return to their normal tan color.

He grinned at her annoyed expression. "Fine, Cam."

"I hate you." Though it had been at the start of their journey, it wasn't entirely true now. Before Cole and Chamille had shared a mutual understanding that they'd leave eachother alone if the other did the same.

But thrust into action by their friend's kidnappers, they'd survived a deadly dragon chase and were on their way to a deadly, magical island neither of them knew much about.

Things had changed.

Nothing was as simple as it had been.

"Chamille? Hello? Anyone home?" Chamille snapped out of her train of thought, frowning.

"Blow the stupid horn, earth demon."

Cole obliged, and a deep, echoing sound came out of it. Almost instantly they could hear the faint flapping of wings, and in the distance, far over the ocean, two blurry brown dots were approaching fast. As they veered closer, they looked like brownish seagulls.

"Are those...birds?" Cole asked.

Chamille gasped as they swooped closer, looking like they came straight from a storybook. No, not a storybook, an ancient, undiscovered world. "No, not birds, Cole."

The half-eagle, half-lion beasts swooped to a landing infront of them.

"They're griffons…"

After convincing Cole griffons were probably, almost one-hundred percent not going to eat elemental masters as a nice, healthy snack, they boarded their mounts and took off into the sky.

Cole wondered if Chamille was as confident as she looked, easily clinging onto her griffon as it darted around the sky. He wondered if she noticed it still had a few purple streaks… no matter what form she took, she always had something purple on her.

Like the shift and her red markings.

Hey, wait a minute…

He tugged his griffon slightly to the side, and it whizzed over to where Chamille was. "Chamille!"

"What?" She called back, slowing down to swoop closer to him.

"What if the red markings are a sign? That the human and dragon forms on the shift lady meant those aren't her natural form?"

Chamille nodded. "Where did you get that idea?"

"Your hair."

"Huh?"

"Some if it's still purple."

"It is?" Chamille swooped down low to the water to examine her reflection, Cole diving down more slowly to hover besides her as she looked. "Oh. It is. I guess I never really thought about it before."

"Yeah, me neither."

Chamille looked up, and suddenly her expression changed. "We've gotta get in the air!"

"What?" Cole looked up to see wooden beams rising out of the sea and noticed that the water seemed to drop away like a skating pool. "I think we're here!"

"The island of shifts." Chamille agreed, "And it looks like we've got company."

A few guards were staring and pointing at them, and Cole flew in their direction after Chamille, who grabbed her bow and an arrow on griffon back and readied for fire.

The shifts were on a small wooden outcropping that was part of a large structure, with guard nooks placed systematically in other perches along its side. Intricate red and gold patterns decorated the walls, and the platforms were open to the sea, with no railing. And, without even scanning her surroundings, Chamille was soaring towards their most able threat.

Cole concluded that there was no way she could be so brave, just impulsive and reckless. They were flying into unknown territory, against an enemy they knew little to nothing about, on wild griffons they had summoned with a magic horn. But before he knew it, he had his scythe readied to help her attack.

As Chamille swooped close enough to the guards to get a clear shot, she lept off her griffon's back, aiming an arrow at a tall, muscled guard.

Cole swooped up next to the platform and climbed off, their griffons flying away to watch at a safer distance, and swung his scythe in a wide circle around himself, knocking two of the eight guards into the water.

Chamille's arrow hit its mark, but to her dismay the shift removed it easily from the hole it plucked in his armor, revealing no sign he had wounds.

With an annoyed growl, she tugged a smaller sword out of her belt, fending off her opponent and another guard who had scrambled over.

With a final swipe, Cole fought off three more guards and proceeded to a fourth. Meanwhile, Chamille turned into a cougour, abandoning her sword.

After an initial expression of surprise, the guard smiled and tossed his spear over the side of the platform, turning into a bulky mountain lion.

Both cats sprang at eachother, and Cole watched the other guard, who was watching the fight, slink eagerly towards Chamille. But before he could call out a warning, something hard and cold cut into his shoulder and he stumbled.

"Forget about me?" His current opponent growled, removing his sword.

Spinning around, Cole sized up his form-taking foe. Tall. Red markings. Dark brown, almost black, hair against darkly tanned skin. And probably about Cole's age, too, not that he'd show any mercy to a stuck-up teen who didn't know when to quit.

They circled each other matching stride for stride as they sized their opponents up and readied their weapons. Then, in a flash, they sprang at each other. Metal met metal, and sword crashed against scythe.

Chamille wasn't any more at an advantage with her fight. The mountain-lion shift was evenly matched, and for every bit of skill and cunning she had he had brute strength and irregular speed.

With a last burst of energy, as her opponent reared up, Chamille turned back to human and darted under the large cat as he pounced on the spot where she would've been. Before she could dash away and reclaim her sword, though, the un-transformed gaud grabbed her and the other turned back, pressing his spear against her back.

"Not a move, pussycat."

She glanced at Cole's fight, where he was aimlessly slashing his scythe at the guard, who looked bored. A crimson gash in his shoulder told her he wasn't doing very well.

Her guard grinned. "Any last words?"

Remembering something, Chamille grabbed her thermos of Siren's Tea in one fluid movement and uncapped it, gulping down the still-warm drink.

She relaxed, hoping something would happen, but nothing did. She felt normal.

Uh-oh.

"What is it, Pussycat? Somethin' supposed to happen?" The guard teased, sneering.

Feeling anger well up in her, Chamille prepared to shoot back a retort, but instead a strange instinct told her: Sing.

Without thinking, Chamille, sung, "Leave me alone, let us go free. Give up your mind and fall fast asleep...nowhere to run and nowhere to hide, give up this fortress and let us inside…"

The guards holding her seemed to go into a trance dropping her and moving to a wall with reddish patterns, opening a hidden panel that lead to a long, dark hallway.

Chamille gasped as she realized it was controlling them, but in her moment of silence both started to fade back into reality. Chamille kept singing, louder now. "Let us go, let us inside...freely give up your mind..."

At her order, the guards stood down, this time including the one fighting Cole.

"How are you doing that?" Cole asked.

Chamille shook her head and motioned to her thermos, trying to keep the guards subdued as she headed towards the entrance to the fortress.

"Oh."

But just as they started to exit the platform, one of the guards snapped awake. "Where're you going?"

"It must be wearing off!" Chamille exclaimed, slamming closed the hidden panel and taking off down the narrow hall.

The fight had been won, but the battle was long from over.