"They're up and ready to kill me if I open the door, but otherwise I can't get the stuff in there, and we can't get to them." Jeremy shrugged. "And I don't want to use any of my heavy-duty spells on them."

"And we can't use any more feather root on them," Caleb said, nodding. "Maybe a shield spell between you and them?"

"That'll work for food and feathers," Jeremy agreed. "But not once we actually need blood from them." He pondered for a few moments. "I guess I'll try that and see how it goes, and we'll start out with the spells that only need feathers and see how that goes."

Caleb nodded.

"Sounds like a plan for now," he agreed. "Need a hand with the spells?"

Jeremy shook his head a bit. "Not unless you want to get a head start. I'll go test the shield spell and see how well that works and I'll let you know."

"Alright," Caleb said. "Give a holler if you need a hand with the shields." In the meantime, he would sort through their accumulated spells to see what they could use gryphon feathers in and which wouldn't take so well to them.

"Alright." Jeremy made his way back to the shed, looking at the two gryphons before he decided to test on the gold one first. He held up a hand and put the shield in place with a muttered word and a brief flare of power, keeping the faint blue shield between himself and the gryphon with enough room for him to get in and put food down.

As soon as the door opened, Corinne threw caution to the wind and tried to barge through the opening. She bounced off of the shield with a squawk, however, and fell backwards in a small flurry of knocked-loose feathers.

Jeremy grinned when it worked and was quick to set her tray down and snatch up a few feathers. He repeated the process with Callie before he retreated, a bundle of gleaming feathers in hand, grinning like the cat that ate the canary.

Caleb looked over when he heard the door open and he paused when he saw Jeremy.

"How the hell did you manage that?" he asked, looking at the bundle of feathers.

"They both slammed against the shield spell, so I just gathered up the feathers from the floor." Jeremy grinned. "I think we've got a decent working base for now."

"Awesome," Caleb said, grinning. "Well, I started prepping to test the potency of the feathers, so we can do that soon."

"Excellent." Jeremy grinned. They were all set now, and things were going well. Just he way he liked.

Caleb left Jeremy to the experimenting. His brother had more of a knack for structured spellwork than he did; he had more of a talent with energies and forces, rather than actual spells. So he ended up taking food to their two gryphons every day. He noticed more feathers on the floor of the cages each day, and he collected what he could to bring to Jeremy after leaving food down for the gryphons, until one day he showed up and, instead of there being a golden-colored gryphon in the cage, a young woman was crouched back in the far corner, watching distrustfully.

Callie had also managed to change back, crouching in the back and watching every move he made. She showed her teeth in a decidedly not so human way when he got closer, though.

Caleb blinked when he realized that there were two very feral, very naked girls in the cages. Then, without even stopping to put the food into the cages, he turned and went back to find his brother.

"Jeremy? You should see this. Did you know they could do this?"

Jeremy blinked. "What? I don't even know what you mean." He frowned a little at Caleb before he headed back to the workshop.

And then he stopped. And stared.

"What the hell?"

"I know, right?" Caleb replied, nodding and gesturing to the cages. "Did you know they did that? Because I sure as hell didn't."

Corinne stayed crouched in the corner of her cage and bared her teeth at them, not quite hissing at the two mages.

"I had no idea." Jeremy quickly went from gobsmacked to fascinated almost instantly. "Holy shit."

Callie growled a little at the two.

"Do you know what this means?" Caleb asked. "There could be so many more of them out there, and we'd have no idea. They'd look like normal people. Who knows how many are really out there?"

Corinne growled as well, at that. She didn't like the thought of the mages knowing that gryphons could change shape. It put them all in danger.

"We still have our two," Jeremy pointed out. "We can figure out about others later. These two come first." He still looked riveted. He'd have to find a way to check besides throwing feather root at people.

Callie growled at that, baring her teeth and shifting.

Caleb looked at the two girls for a moment.

"Yeah, still dialing up the shields to maximum to bring them food, though," he said, nodding.

"Yeah. Just because they look human doesn't mean they're any less dangerous." Jeremy looked at them both, memorizing their human forms as well.

"Exactly," Caleb said. He handed his brother one of the bowls. "Here, you take one, I'll take the other, it'll be quicker that way."

Jeremy nodded and headed for the cage where the gold gryphon had been. The girl was just as beautiful, but in a different way. A way he appreciated more as a man than as a mage, although he didn't let himself go any farther than that.