“The thing is,” Eli continued, “I’ve never quite understood what they mean. This description of transforming from one thing to another—I don’t experience that.”

“You don’t shift?” Cooper said, confused, and immediately kicked himself—he’d literally seen Eli in fur that afternoon—but for once Eli didn’t mock him.

“It’s more that I never quite stop shifting,” he said thoughtfully. “If most of us board a shuttle between two distinct stops, my body...decides to go on a walkabout, see the sights, wander as far or as near in any possible direction that I desire.” He shook his head. “The point is, this makes me unusually good at slipping.”

“Like what you were doing with your claws before,” Cooper guessed.

“Yes, but not just with claws and eyes.”

Eli reached up and ran his fingers through his own dark hair and pulled a chunk of it upward. Except it wasn’t hair—it was a single, pointed, furry wolf’s ear. Seemingly just plucked from the top of his head. As soon as Cooper registered it, Eli was tugging the ear flat to the scalp and let his hand keep falling, smoothing down the side of his face to reveal his usual human ear. Had that disappeared when the other one had appeared? Presumably so, but Cooper hadn’t even noticed.

“Am I drunk?” he wondered.

“Possibly,” Eli said cheerfully. “But you saw what you saw. I can slip most any part of myself to most any degree. It can be quite the horror show, I’m told.”

“I think it’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” Cooper blurted out. “Sorry. I’m just—that was incredible.”

Eli eyed him beadily. “Yes, well. I don’t know what do with this earnest Cooper. Kindly return to your usual irritating self, posthaste.”

Cooper cleared his throat. “No, I mean, yeah. So, this is what you told James?”

Eli hummed confirmation. “He definitely saw my worth then. Under James’s leadership and with my abilities, the pack became, well, rather prolific thieves.”

“Just because you can slip?” Cooper asked, confused.

“I think you’re underestimating how advantageous it can be to bend your joints forward and backward at will, change your face just subtly enough to look completely unrecognizable, or shrink your body to half the size while retaining use of your thumbs. Never mind being able to covertly and publicly pull up a whole other set of senses that work infinitely better than those of even other wolves in skin.”

That...made sense. “Point taken. Please, continue.”

“We stole from other rebels, the humans, even the nearby ruling packs. We accumulated quite a lot of money and quite a lot of enemies in a very short amount of time. The water, as they say, was getting hot.” Eli fell silent, and Cooper waited as patiently as he could, though he was fascinated to know the story.