“You still are,” he said. Even after returning to her erstepelz, she hovered about knee-high above the platform.

Rebecca looked down, gasped, and promptly fell out of the air, landing in a heap on the walkway. “What! How?” She scrambled to her feet.

“You can fly,” Bitterlich said, amazed.

“So can you,” she said, dusting herself off. Her clothes had come back crooked and disheveled, as if she’d been in a fight with a mad laundress.

“You can fly without transforming. It’s incredible. I’ve certainly never seen anything like it. Every Seelenjäger gets certain gifts from their first soul skin. They’re Seelengeschenke—abilities the creature has that you can use without changing shape. Flying is so intrinsic to being a ghostfire wyrm that you kept that gift even in your erstepelz.”

Rebecca looked at her feet still firmly stuck to the planks. “Are you sure? The minute I realized I was doing it, it stopped working.”

“Because you told it to stop,” Bitterlich said. “Now we have to figure out how to tell it to start again. What did it feel like to fly as a wyrm?”

“I dunno,” Rebecca said. “I just … you know how you can feel which direction is down, which way your weight is pointed. I could just sort of turn it around to point the direction I wanted to go.”

“Can you do that now? Don’t think about flying, just think about that sensation.”

Rebecca closed her eyes. “It’s just like falling…” Slowly she lifted from the walkway and drifted skyward.

“Perfect,” Bitterlich said.

Rebecca opened her eyes and looked around. “Sodding saints!” She wobbled a bit and then caught herself. “We’re so high!”

“So?” Bitterlich said, hopping up on the guardrail, balancing despite the persistent breeze. “It doesn’t matter how far away the ground is if you can get there at your own speed. Follow me.”

Once more he took on wings. “Come on!”

Rebecca followed Bitterlich as he spiraled away from the tower, swooping up and diving, rolling and twisting. Within five minutes they were chasing each other across the docks in a game of aerial tag. Rebecca forgot her worries and cackled gleefully as they shot through a warehouse that was open at both ends, startling the workers. Bewildered, angry shouts followed them around the depot’s perimeter.

At last Bitterlich brought her back to the courtyard where they’d started. Both of them were huffing and blowing with exertion, but Rebecca was grinning so hard he feared her face might split.

“Did you see that?” she said. “Whoosh, right through the building! And you can see everything from up there! And everyone looks so small! I can go anywhere!”

“Yes. You did very well.” Bitterlich said, basking in her glee. “But you still need to practice changing forms.”

“What about breathing fire?” she asked excitedly.

He arched an eyebrow at her. “I thought you didn’t want to be a Seelenjäger.”