23. Sergey

23

SERGEY

H eller’s show is different the second time around. Some of the acts are replaced by others, including a number where he dances alone on the stage. We share a drink with some of his friends after it’s over. He introduces me to them as his boyfriend, which feels right. They all act shocked and tease him about it, but in a good-natured way.

That night we make love in his bed. I get to explore every inch of his body with my hands and mouth. When I finally enter him, my inner alpha rises to meet his inner omega, and they fuse together without any of the pain or fear from last night. We wake in the middle of the night to do it again, and when I get up the following morning to go to a meeting, we suck each other off before I get out of bed. I don’t think I’ll ever get enough of him.

I drive to the Dubow forge early so I can have a few minutes to center myself before I go in. Today I’ll be teaching my spells to the best welders in Anchorage. I know those spells work, but I don’t know what these people will think of them. Cy didn’t even know what a shape chain was. I worry that the Albuquerque and Anchorage welding schools haven’t compared notes in so long, we may have completely different methods.

If that’s true, they may not be able to learn my spells. Or maybe they’ll learn them so quickly, I’ll look like a fool for claiming to need skilled welders. I have no idea what to expect.

I take a deep breath and get out of the car. I’m still a little early, but I’d like to already be at the forge when everyone starts to arrive. The bell above the front door rings as I step inside. The fire of the forge along the back wall is already burning. Cy and Ben stand a few paces off. On the floor in between them is an enormous tortoise. They both look my way as I walk inside.

“Hello! Sergey, this is Scooch. Scooch, this is our new friend, Sergey,” Ben says, gesturing toward the tortoise.

Cy drags a hand through his hair. “Does Scooch have to be at the meeting?”

“Everyone loves Scooch. She’ll be the life of the party,” Ben says.

“This isn’t a party, it’s a meeting,” Cy reminds him.

“She’ll be the life of the meeting, then. Even better. Meetings are boring. Who wouldn’t want an adorable tortoise to make their meeting more interesting?”

To be fair to Ben, Scooch is pretty cute. Her skin is all wrinkly and she’s chewing on some kind of plant. Maybe that’s how Ben lured her in here.

The bell rings behind me. Sarah and Katya walk inside. Sarah lights up when she sees Scooch. “Look who it is! Scooch, my main woman!” She rushes over to the tortoise and crouches down beside her, holding out her hand. “Shake, Scooch.”

Ben winces. “Um, she’s never going to do that for you, no matter how many times you try. It’s not personal, she just isn’t capable of learning commands.”

“Tortoises aren’t trainable. Unfortunately,” Cy says, muttering that last part to himself.

I can’t help but smile. He reminds me so much of my omega dad tolerating my alpha dad’s various pets.

The bell rings again. Todd and Max walk in together, chatting amiably about some hand-me-down clothes Todd wants to give away. This is the Max who adopted Lark with his partner. Heller explained the whole situation to me yesterday during lunch. That puts Max’s request for a flexible schedule in a new light for me, since I’ll technically be co-parenting with him at some point.

It’s nice that Lark already has three dads who prioritize them like that.

Dominic joins us next, then Axe and Tana with a few new welders I haven’t met before. The forge is now crowded with polar bear shifters. They chat and tease each other with a comradery that’s similar to the forge I run back at home.

“Hey!” Cy yells loud enough to make the room go silent. “We’re here to learn about magical prosthetics from Sergey.”

“Like that video you sent us,” one of the new welders says to Axe.

“Right,” Axe agrees. “I sent them a YouTube video about a hand you made for a kid in Florida. It’s called, ‘better than a real hand.’ Have you seen it?”

I nod. It’s not something I show to prospective welders because a reporter made the video, and he didn’t understand the emotional implications of losing a limb or using a prosthetic.

“The prosthetics I make respond to their users exactly like a hand made of flesh and blood. They can experience sensation and shift into an animal limb when their user takes their animal form. They can even change into a bottle opener, if the user wants them too. But I want to make it clear that they’re not better than a real hand. Partially, because they don’t look like a real hand. They’re bare metal, and that can create social barriers for people who use them. Kids on the playground will treat a child using a metal hand differently, or as those children get older, it can be harder for them to date or get a job. People aren’t always nice to those who are different. Also, these prosthetics chafe and cause irritation just like any other medical device people wear.”

The whole group of welders listen to me in silence. It’s a little strange to be standing in front of them like this after our casual meet-up at the bar. I’m really doing this. Magic Metal Prosthetics is finally expanding to Anchorage.

“Contrary to what you might think, my prosthetics are actually less functional than others on the market in some ways. Most people with limb differences were born that way, or in other words they have a congenital limb difference. My prosthetics don’t work well for them. They work best for patients with an acquired limb difference, meaning they lost their limb because of an injury, illness, or medical treatment. This is because those patients remember how to give mental directions to a limb in that area of their body. It’s automatic for them.”

Dominic raises his hand like we’re in a classroom. I guess we are, in a way. “How did you figure all of this out?”

I smile. “My alpha dad. He has a congenital limb amelia, meaning he was born without a right arm. To be clear, my dad does quite well without that arm, and he’s never had an interest in a prosthetic, but as a teenager I thought I could fix him with magic.”

They laugh, which is good. It was a silly, stupid idea.

“The first prosthetic I made for him was this awful, clunky thing that ruined a fortune’s worth of magic metal I stole from my welding school. I presented it to him like I was giving him the holy grail. It never occurred to me that he wouldn’t want it. He sat me down and politely thanked me. Then he said something I’ll never forget: ‘Sergey, I am whole. I’m not whole in the same way you are, and there may be some things I can’t do, but I don’t need to be fixed. I’m not broken.’ If you choose to do this work with me, it’s important to understand that the patients we work with all have a unique relationship with their limb differences. Our goal is to make their lives easier, not to fix them. And no matter what magic we weave for them, it will never be an organic part of their bodies. So let’s not romanticize these prosthetics. They’re just a device, nothing more.”

Dominic gives me a wry smile. “You and I have something in common.”

“What’s that?”

“My alpha father also had a… what did you call it? A limb difference.”

Sarah glares at Dominic. “Some people shouldn’t have both of their hands.”

That’s right. I’d forgotten. Dima Ivanov’s daughter cut off his hand to try to stop him from making fidelity necklaces. I don’t know how I feel about her working for me, now that I’ve put two and two together. She was right to try to stop him, but that was a violent way to do it.

I guess this is what I get for asking to use the Ivanov forge.

“Sergey just said that everyone has a ‘unique relationship with their limb difference.’ Dima’s relationship with his was very unique.” Katya quips.

“Can we stop making insensitive limb difference jokes?” Cy says. “Sergey will think we’re assholes.”

Axe nudges him with his elbow. “Some of us are assholes. He should get used to it now if he’s working with you.”

Cy shows Axe his third finger.

“Sometimes limb differences are funny. Lots of my patients make jokes about theirs. But Cy is probably right. We shouldn’t joke around about Dima Ivanov’s injury.”

Katya shrugs. “We’re using his forge to weld magical prosthetics that he’ll never get to use. That’s funny, right?”

“It’s perfect,” Dominic says. “Poetic justice.”

Ben winces. “You aren’t going to weld magical prosthetics to get revenge on a dead amputee, right? That has to be bad.”

“It’s not revenge, it’s change,” Tana argues. “The Ivanov forge was built to weld fidelity necklaces over a hundred years ago back when polar bear shifters were fleeing Russia. That magic was created out of desperation, and it was ugly. This magic was created with love, and it’s beautiful. I think it’s time for us to leave behind what our ancestors did to stay alive and use our magic for good.”

I swallow hard, trying to hold back my emotions. I didn’t think my move to Anchorage would be the catalyst of all that.

“Enough with all the speeches,” Cy says. He hands me a pair of welding gloves and a hammer. “Show us how it’s done.”

I take the gloves from him. “Okay. First, I’m going to teach you how to make a shape chain. It’s a metal chain comprised of rungs in different shapes. The variance of shapes will isolate each of your spells, allowing you to connect them to only one other spell at a time. This will stabilize the spellwork until we get to the latter stages of creating a prosthetic when we fuse them all together.”

The welders stare back at me like I’ve grown a second head. Except for Cy.

“Apparently, all the welders in Albuquerque use shape chains,” Cy says. “And we didn’t know about it.”

Katya shakes her head. “This whole time there was a way to stabilize combined spellwork? Who is the welder who invented this shape chain?”

“I don’t know,” I admit.

Katya and Tana share a meaningful look.

“Why is it that we know the name of the guy who invented the fidelity necklace, but not the person who invented this?” Katya asks.

“The person who invented the shape chain probably wasn’t white. I’m guessing that’s why,” Tana says.

Cy sighs. “Can we just let Sergey teach us how to do it? For Ice’s sake.”

So I teach them, and they learn. Not faster than the pizzlies at my forge in Albuquerque, like I feared, but fast enough. Dominic, in particular, is a brilliant student who understands the concepts quickly and thoroughly. Katya is fast to pick up everything too.

But it’s Max who finishes his shape chain first. He has a feel for the magic that I’m not sure someone can teach. It’s like he can sense the way the spells thread together before I explain it. If I had to guess, the person who created the first shape chain was someone like him.

I barely finish the class before I have to leave for the airport. It’s strange to realize I don’t want to go home. Or maybe it’s just that my home is now a different place.