Finally. Fucking finally.

After chanting that stupid incantation for months at dawn and dusk, after brewing the potion twice, holding a mandrake leaf beneath his tongue for sixty days, he had finally reached what he had been waiting for ever since October: another lightning storm. Another chance to attempt the transformation.

This time, he was going to do it. He hadn't been prepared in October; he hadn't expected it to hurt. Maybe it wasn't supposed to. In any case, he hadn't pushed through with the transformation; he'd stopped, withdrawn, and had ended up scarred and exhausted as a result. Scarred and exhausted, and still entirely human. He wasn't even sure what his form would have been, because at no point had his body changed — at least, not while he had been cognizant of it. Something might have happened briefly, while he'd been wracked with pain, but he couldn't recall it.

This time he wasn't going to back down. This was it. If Antigone could do it, he could, too. He was better than her, and he was tired of letting her run around in the woods feeling so damn superior. Of course, he knew the risks, and he knew that he could be increasing them with his determination to push ahead no matter what happened. He might not survive the night. Worse, he might end up so mangled and incapacitated that he could do nothing but wait for someone else to determine his fate.

That was why he'd written a parting letter to his uncle. He trusted the older man would send him off to the next world rather than allow him to live as an invalid indefinitely — so at least that was some consolation. Hopefully it didn't come to that — not because Tiberius was afraid of dying, but because it would be impossible to prevent Lucius from knowing how severely he'd failed. He would have preferred to avoid disappointing him, but there was nothing for it. There was no one else that he could trust with his affairs — and if things went south, Lucius would know, anyway. He would be able to piece together what had happened. Tiberius just needed to succeed, then.

He'd carefully arranged things in the house, in case he didn't return, then dressed for the storm and made his way out into the woods. He was too eager to wait once he was in the cover of the trees — but also too nervous to rush, lest he make the attempt too soon and waste the potion that he had been keeping safe for months. Lightning flashed. This was it: time to make the attempt. Do or die.

It began. He was ready for pain, but it never came. A tingling sensation, offset by the continuous drops of rain, and then — he flew.