March 19th, 1929

When Fex set out that morning, the weather was lovely. Brisk but sunny, with the promise of spring finally coming to fruition in the hills and hollers of Appalachia. At the lower elevations, trees were greening, crocuses and a few ambitious daffodils were blooming, and songbirds loudly competed for territory, advertising their charms from rooftops and tree tops. ‘Heeeey sweetie! Heeeey sweetie!’ trilled one hopeful black-capped chickadee nearby. Fex whistled back, mimicking the song if not the message. For a few minutes they traded calls, and then he tugged his cap down, shouldered his collecting sack, and headed uphill.

The higher he climbed, the brisker it got, until he entered under the sheltering canopy of pines where his hunting grounds lay. His eyes were on the ground, scanning the loam and leaf litter at the trees’ bases for the telltale little humps of lifting soil, or even better, the bright spots of color that marked his quarry.

There! He grinned as he crouched next to his find, brushing the mat of fallen needles away to reveal a cluster of spindly yellow mushrooms. “Golden Kisses!” he said. “You’ll make a fancy dinner!” He carefully dug them free, leaving plenty of their bases to spawn again, and popped them into one of a dozen mesh bags he’d brought with him.

Where there was one cluster, there were at least five others. It didn’t take long before he had enough for dinner tonight, breakfast tomorrow, and a decent batch to sell to the chef who lived below him when he got home. 

He had to hunt a good while before he found more of what he was looking for. This time it was Dusky Inkwells for drying and grinding into medicine rather than a meal. Tasty mushrooms were also a good find, of course, but it was the medicinal ones that were his stock in trade as an apothecary.

His satchel was partway filled with a half dozen different varieties, and it was well past noon before he stopped for a rest. He ate a cheese sandwich and gave the sky a dubious look. The sun had vanished under a veil of threatening clouds, and the wind had started tossing the trees above him with a sound like ocean waves. 

Probably time to start back down, if he didn’t want to be caught in whatever squall was coming. He wrapped his scarf more closely around his throat with a regretful sigh. He’d hoped to have spent the full day up here, and he still hadn’t found any Scarlet Spotted Maidens, which were atrociously scarce, thus atrociously valuable. Atrociously poisonous as well, in the wrong hands, so it was just as well that they took some expertise to find, but since his were the right hands…

Oh well. Who could control the weather? Not him, certainly. His great grandmother could, but she’d have scolded him for frivolity if he’d asked her to keep the rain and cold off the mountain so he could hunt mushrooms.

He reshouldered his satchel and started back down, but he hadn’t gone far when he froze. There was a noise. Some quirk of the local geography just amplifying the snuffling of a wild goat grazing, probably, but it had sent a chill up his spine that had nothing to do with the falling temperature. His long ears swiveled to catch the sound better. That was not a goat. It was the heavy two-footed tread of a human, and the soft pad of a dog.

Fex cursed his luck. There shouldn’t be any hunters here—at least not any ethical ones. Birthing season was right around the corner, and everyone knew better than to cull the next generation before fall.

But it was definitely a human. There were none of his own kin within hundreds of miles. He rolled a protective layer of mana across his skin, darkening his hair, shifting his features. Shortening and rounding his ears until they were the sad nubs that all humans had to make do with. And then, for good measure, he expanded his aura to create a sort of notice-me-not effect. It didn’t make him completely disappear, but it would certainly fool a casual glance.

The tromping was getting closer. Fex glanced up at the sky once more, and in his own personal shroud, he headed off at a perpendicular trail to the man. Poor fool shouldn’t be out here anyway, with the weather turning, and ordinarily Fex might even have gone to help them head back to town. But he was feeling peevish about the interruption to his lovely day of solitude and mushrooms. The human had a dog. Any smart dog wouldn’t let its human freeze in a rainstorm.

As if on cue, the first heavy splatters of rain began to fall.

It took him a moment to realize the human and dog had changed direction. Were they following him? 

Fex picked up his pace. The human and dog did too.

Damn. How? Why?

The how was easy enough, he supposed. He hadn’t been trying to hide his tracks. The why though… Didn’t really matter. He didn’t want to be found. He wanted to go home, take a nice bath, cook his mushrooms for dinner, and maybe read a book. Fex thought imprecations at his pursuers and took off at a run.

**

Nicoletta flattened her ears against her head as the raindrops fell. She dropped her nose closer to the ground; the water spread the scent and made it slightly harder to track. Not enough to stop her. 

The man holding the end of her leash slipped, yanking on the entirely ignoble collar—she still couldn’t believe she was wearing a collar—again. At every misstep and stumble he yanked on it. This time she turned around and snapped at him. 

He reeled back in alarm. Then his already-flushed face went redder, and he jerked the leash, making her stagger. “Don’t forget which of us is in charge here.” Doubtless he was trying to sound fierce, but the way he gasped between each word didn’t lend itself to intimidation. 

Nicoletta took petty revenge by lunging ahead, pulling on the leash herself. It wasn’t as good a yank as she’d have liked; being down one leg took away some of her sheer power, but it still nearly dragged him into the deepening mud. 

“You want to find him on your own? Fine,” the man spat, clambering to his feet and smearing grime on his shirt as he tried to brush it off. He tossed the end of the leash at her. 

She was loose. And she wasn’t. She was tied as securely as if they had her chained, and would be as long as they had her brother. She stared at him, suspecting a trick.

“Go make sure the target doesn’t escape. Keep him until I get there.” 

Nicoletta waited one more beat, just to make sure, before she turned and went streaking through the forest. 

She struggled, still faster than any dog at her tracking speed, but only perhaps as fast as a natural wolf. Her missing foreleg hampered her; trot with the back legs, a hop with the single front. The shoulder joint and bit of stub she still retained ached. Anger and resentment drove her forward.

The scent grew fresher. She shot around a log, wove through a few trees, and then it was nearly a straight line. She extended her stride, awkward as it was, and raced along. 

Then, just as the scent grew strong enough that she knew her quarry wasn’t far, it stopped.

Nicoletta sat back on her haunches. She circled around, tongue lolling out until she relocated the smell. There it was. And there it wasn’t. She looked up and around, scanning trees, listening for footfalls, checking the wind. 

Usually when something disappeared this thoroughly it had gone upward, but the trees were only just starting to fill out, and a human form perched in one would be obvious. 

She circled the ground, trying to pick up wherever the trail started again. Below, the idiot human grunted and stomped up the hillside. She paused and listened for other human noises, ears forward, then sideways, then back. She lifted her head and searched the area. Finally, she dropped her nose once more to the trail. Traced it back, where she was sure she had it right. Then, step by careful step, she slunk forward again. 

It didn’t vanish, she realized. It just got faint. But it was still there; fresh bark and a hint of something sweet: lilacs in bloom, maybe, overlaid by the sizzle of lightning when it blasted the air. 

As she grew accustomed to the faint trail, she began to pick up speed again. The idiot behind her had gotten close enough that she could hear him puffing and cursing. She went up a short rise, then stopped at the top.

The trail led straight to a small stream. With an internal sigh she picked her way down the embankment, unsurprised to discover the scent went right into the water. It hovered just over the surface, as simple to track as when it was on the ground. 

She splashed unhappily into the icy runoff. Her legs froze, but her undercoat protected her belly as the water rose. For a stride she swam, heart thundering as her single foreleg pedaled fast, trying to keep her chest up. Then there were rocks under her pads again and she lunged out of the stream, shaking hard to lose excess water. She paced up and down the bank a moment until she found the trail, and then went tearing after the person who’d led her into such misery. As if the rainstorm, worsening with every passing minute, wasn’t enough. 

The trail grew hotter, the scent stronger, and she knew her prey had to be there, just right there—

Around a tree that had come down and the bushes that grew up around it— 

She slammed into a tangle of arms and legs and shouting. Nicoletta rolled out of it, was on her feet in the blink of an eye, and saw a slight man scrambling up, reaching for a knife. 

With a growl she launched at him, planting her forepaw in the middle of his chest and knocking him back over with her entire weight behind it. She put her face in his and snarled, baring all of her very large, very pointed teeth. 

For a moment he froze. A moment was enough. She twisted, shoving him over with her nose and grabbing his jacket at the base of his neck. When he flailed she yanked, using her whole body to jerk him off his feet like a ragdoll. Then she poured on the speed. 

He wasn’t any bigger than her brother, and long practice at hauling other siblings home gave her the experience she needed. She didn’t have to drag him far; just back across the stream, because she had no doubt the idiot human wouldn’t be able to ford it. 

Twice he twisted hard enough to almost escape her grip, once nearly slashing her with his knife. In retaliation she dunked him under the water first chance she got, before striking out for the other side. 

He nearly clambered to his feet in the stream, being taller than she was, but whipping her head—and therefore his coat—one way and then the other, as if snapping a deer’s neck, twisted him around enough that she got the upper hand. 

By the time she hauled him over the embankment her muscles were trembling and her missing leg throbbed with pain. 

And then he had the gall to get an arm free and start writhing himself out of his jacket. 

With the sort of ground shaking growl-snarl-snap she’d have given a misbehaving cub, she jumped at him hard enough to send him into the mud. Then, her face inches from his, she sat on him and waited for her idiot human to arrive.

**

Fex coughed thickly, trying to clear the icy snowmelt from his lungs and the utter disbelief from his brain. There. Was. A. Wolf. Sitting on him. A wolf that had tracked and run him down like a yearling buck—how?—and now had him pinned. 

Black lips drew back from wet, yellow teeth poised to tear the skin from his face or rip out his trachea. The smell of its hot breath sent a fresh wave of panic spiraling through him.

He didn’t think it through. Didn’t have a plan beyond get away. He just reached up with his right arm and shoved against the wolf’s chest. Something was different there—a weakness he could exploit?—and he almost managed to topple it off balance. He shoved up with his hips for more leverage and tried to wrench himself free.

The wolf was faster. Near his match in weight, and more than a match in muscle. It bit down on his right shoulder and slammed him back down so hard his skull thudded hollowly against the rocky earth. Then it lay on him, holding him down with the full length of its body. Its menacing growl shook Fex’s bowels.

He turned his head away, with his heart hammering in his chest, and waited for the pain that he knew was coming. Of all the ways he’d considered he might one day die, ‘eaten by a wolf’ had never cracked the top one hundred.

Except.

It didn’t kill him. It didn’t even bite again. His shoulder hurt, but he wasn’t sure it had even broken through his clothing, let alone his skin. 

Curiosity in the face of his own death got the better of him, and he turned his head back to look at it. Its eyes were a yellow-gold-green—the color of early willow leaves just starting to emerge, his unhelpful brain supplied—and he had the distinct impression it was looking at him. Seeing him, with an intelligent mind behind the angry snarl. 

And it was missing a leg. That was the weakness he’d almost managed to take advantage of. Might have even succeeded, he thought, if he hadn’t been operating on nothing but adrenaline and blind terror.

He wished he had his cousin’s ability to communicate with animals. He tried anyway. “Uh…. Please. Let me go?” His voice cracked like an adolescent’s. 

The wolf’s response, if it really was a response, was a fresh snarl and a heavier settling of its sternum against his own.

He groped blindly with one hand for… what? A rock? His lost knife? He found a thick braided strap of something leather-like, closed his fingers around it and tugged. It didn’t come free. But it did yank the wolf’s head to the side for an instant, before the wolf jerked the cord free of his grasp and snapped its jaws in his face.

A leash? 

Heavy steps approached from somewhere above, and panting breath. The hunter. Who apparently hunted with a wolf. 

A sharp, nasal voice snapped, “No, Nicoletta! Bad dog!”

The wolf—Did this man not know his dog was a wolf?—stopped snarling at Fex and turned to growl softly at the hunter instead.

In a much less angry tone, the hunter said, “Thank you so much for catching her! She yanked right out of my hand and took off.” 

Part two of Fex’s bewildering day seemed to be starting. “I… didn’t?” he said, and coughed because he still had half a gasped breath of water in his lungs from the wolf’s attempt to drown him. “She caught me.” Obviously. “Can you call her off me?”

“Of course, I’m so sorry,” the hunter said. He glared meaningfully at the wolf and his tone sharpened again. “Nicoletta. Let that young man up.”

The wolf—Nicoletta—slowly stood up, still growling, still with her eyes on the hunter. One clawed rear paw was planted on Fex’s right hip, uncomfortably close to his groin. And her single front paw was on his left shoulder. She didn’t stay like that for more than a few seconds, much to Fex’s relief, but stepped off him and turned her whole body towards the hunter.

Whom she clearly did not like. Or maybe she just didn’t like being deprived of her catch, even though she’d seemed oddly reluctant to dispatch Fex.

Fex sat up too, shivering at the sudden absence of warm wolf between his soaking clothes and the bitter air. Was it starting to sleet? He reached for the leash that still trailed on the ground; Nicoletta immediately snapped at him and refocused her staring growl from her owner to Fex.

Fine.

He shoved himself to his feet, wrapped his arms around himself for a semblance of warmth, and said tightly, “You should keep a better grip on her lead.” 

He was relieved to find his mushroom satchel was still slung across his body, and still fastened shut, so at least he had his morning’s harvest and the Golden Kisses to look forward to.

He didn’t even bother to say goodbye, just turned and started heading downhill. The man could take care of his wolf-that-he-thought-was-a-dog on his own. Also what kind of name was Nicoletta for a beast like that?

**

Nicoletta scratched at the ground, trying to pick up her leash herself, only to be foiled when Droste scooped it up out of the litter. For a moment she considered snapping at him, but if she made him enough of an enemy, it was her brother who’d suffer. 

She gave him a flat stare instead. He was too busy calling, “Wait!” after the target to notice. 

The target stopped but didn’t turn back. Instead, he gave them a cool look over his shoulder. 

It was the first time that she’d really had a chance to look at him as anything more than movement and shape. Black hair framed a fine-boned face with large, ebony eyes. His skin was slightly darker than hers and Vano’s, declaring his ancestry more desert-born than theirs. If his hair hadn’t been a frazzled mess, and there hadn’t been leaves and twigs stuck in it, he’d have been almost pretty.

Personally, she wasn’t sure why she wasn’t still sitting on him. They certainly hadn’t given her or her brother a chance to escape like this. 

“We were actually looking for you. Letting her reach you before I did was a mistake.” 

Nicoletta leaned away from Droste and looked at him with disgust. He still had mud on his knees and his clothing was filthy. Good. 

“Let me buy you a warm meal, somewhere inside? I have a proposition for you.” 

The target didn’t even turn around. Nicoletta had to be impressed with him, even though her fur was starting to soak through; she thought most other humans would have jumped at the chance for a warm meal. 

“You were looking for me,” he said, as if he didn’t believe it at all. “Here. Out in the middle of nowhere on my day off.”

Droste held a hand out, and Nicoletta half expected him to try and leash the target, too. “It’s a matter of life and death. My name is Robert. Robert Droste.” 

The target sighed so loudly Nicoletta could hear it over the sleet hitting the branches, and turned around. Her initial impression had been correct; he was only about Vano’s size. 

“There are other apothecaries in Alleghan County. You didn’t need to run me down with your pet wolf.”

Droste’s entire scent shifted toward something pleased, and Nicoletta hung her head. She hadn’t realized until just that moment how badly she wanted the target to tell Droste to lay off. 

“We’re not looking for an apothecary, and she’s really not a wolf,” Droste said with a condescending smile toward her. She growled back, but couldn’t put the effort into it she should have. “Not any more than you’re a human.” 

Nicoletta looked at the target with a lot more interest. But he wasn’t a werewolf, or any other shifter; they all had the same base scent, overlaid with their individuality. 

He’d gone perfectly still. Even the wind seemed to pause, breath held. Then the very air shimmered and twisted, and he vanished. 

“Stop him!” Droste shouted, and Nicoletta jumped. 

She leaped just past where he’d been standing. Despite the fact that he wasn’t there, her front paw snagged in something. He appeared again as her paw twisted with his movement. 

Droste was shouting, but in the midst of everything all she could make out was noise. Her heartbeat surged; she wasn’t going to risk her brother by letting the target escape, no matter if part of her wanted that to happen. 

She bit down on the clothing her claws had caught and then jerked, planting her hind legs and throwing the man’s body over, like she might do to kill a deer. The target yelled and hit the ground hard, and she knew he’d have the wind knocked out of him. Maybe be bruised. Maybe have broken something. 

She didn’t care. He wasn’t leaving. 

As he fought for air she lunged up and closed her mouth around his throat, werewolf movement and instinct faster than any prey; he didn’t have a chance of getting his chin down in time. 

She grabbed just hard enough to shake again, though without the intent to snap his spine it would only rattle his brains. Anger and fear made her snarl a wet warning that traveled through her bones. 

The target went still, that peculiar limp tension that she felt in animals who froze before they died. 

A hand closed in her scruff, twisting the skin and trying to haul her off. For a second she resisted. Then Droste jabbed her in her half-healed shoulder. The pain shot down the stub of her leg and up into her spine. She screamed, letting go of the target, and leaped sideways, pulling out of Droste’s hold.

“Mother of Mary, are you all right?” Droste asked.

He wasn’t talking to Nicoletta. 

** 

It took Fex far too long to come back to himself. For a dazed moment he continued to lie gasping on his back, but his eyes finally focused again, and with it, his mind. The man leaning over him was probably in his mid-forties, pale the way a lot of humans with ancestry in the fjords were, but blotchy red now with effort and alarm. 

The man reached down for Fex, but Fex was still too unnerved for that; he shoved himself backwards along the ground, out from under the looming man, and sat up a little shakily.

A glance to his left made it clear the wolf was no threat; she was curled around her missing leg, whimpering and licking at the stump. The sleet plastered her thick, ashy brown coat down at her shoulders, and ice crystals had begun to gather where the fur was still upright.

“What do you want from me?” Fex asked, eyes back on the man. He mourned the loss of his knife even more acutely now. 

The man pulled away, hands up and palms out. “Just to talk. I swear—she’s lost her mind. I can help your people, and we need your help. I just wanted to talk.”

“Help us how?” Fex asked, ignoring the question of what this man meant by ‘your people’ for now. He got shakily to his feet, hugging his arms close to his body. “What did you say your name was?”

“Robert.” He smiled and wiped wet hair out of his face. “Robert Droste. I can answer all your questions, but maybe somewhere warmer and drier? I have rooms if you’d like, or we can go somewhere public.” 

The wolf lifted her head and stared in their direction, green-gold eyes narrowed a little.

No way in hell’s nine levels was Fex going back to whatever ‘rooms’ Droste was talking about. “Dee’s Diner,” he said, naming a place near the outskirts of town. He’d been chased so far off his original path he had no idea how close they were to town anymore, but he’d deal with that problem if it really was one. 

His chattering teeth and soaking clothes were a problem though, and the sharp ache in his wrenched shoulder suggested the wolf had actually done some kind of damage. He couldn’t hide his chill well, or the fact that he was still holding his injured arm with his good one, but he straightened up and made an effort. He layered his glamour with a little extra concealment, too, to keep his discomfort off his face.

Droste turned to the wolf—Nicoletta, Fex remembered, because it was a ridiculous name. “Can you find the diner? Or at least town?”

She growled briefly, then heaved herself up and gave the two of them a long stare. If she were human, Fex thought, she’d probably be muttering a long string of swear words under her breath. 

Droste reached for her leash and she allowed it, stepping slightly aside to give him access. She eyed him, looking deeply unimpressed, with her ears folded down and her head level with her spine. Her tail hung low, like it was just too much effort to bother holding it any higher. She might have been a wolf, but canine was canine, and Fex had seen more than a few malcontent dogs in his 415 years. 

Once Droste straightened, she walked as far from him as she could get on the leash without pulling. She glanced back once, first at Droste, then for an unsettling moment, at Fex. With a dismissive snort, she faced front again, and headed downhill. 

She had—not really a limp. It was more of a hopalong gait that made her head and shoulders bob up and down as she went. Watching her was interesting enough that it took a moment for Fex to realize why he was really staring at her: Droste had spoken to her as if she fully understood him. Can you find the diner? Or at least town? And she’d started downhill, which manifestly was at least in the primary correct direction.

Maybe she was just an unusually smart wolf. Maybe it meant nothing—people talked to their pets like they expected them to understand all the time. But it felt like Nicoletta had understood. And Droste had said she’s not a wolf any more than you’re a human. Fex still didn’t trust this man, but he had to ask. “What did you mean when you said she’s not a wolf?”

It took Droste a long moment to answer—thinking up a lie, or did he just not know how to explain? Finally he said, “She’s a magical creature. Her intelligence is more human than beast.”

Nicoletta stopped dead in her tracks, stared at him over her damaged shoulder with not-quite a snarl, then skipped quickly sideways to throw her weight against the leash. Droste stumbled and nearly fell with what was essentially a yelp. He regained his footing quickly, though, and jerked the leash back in reprimand.

“We’re having trouble civilizing her behavior,” he said, without taking his eyes off her. “I’m sorry again for what she did. We thought we’d trained her better than that, already.” 

She immediately turned her whole body, bared her fearsome teeth, and snapped at him. Even though she was still six feet away, at the end of her leash, both Fex and Droste flinched. She surged downhill at a run. If Droste hadn’t had his end of the leash wrapped around his wrist, she’d definitely have escaped again. And if he hadn’t been watching her, he might have had his arm wrenched out of its socket, but Droste was, it seemed, no fool. He broke into a run, too, to keep up.

Now Fex had a choice: keep up, or break away and make his own escape. His soaked, icy clothes were making him shiver hard, though, and the weather was getting bleaker by the minute. He’d be slow, and he probably wouldn’t get far, if whatever magical intelligence Nicoletta had included an ability to find him despite his illusions, as it had seemed.

With the gut-clenching sensation that he was making a bad decision, Fex broke into a run, too, chasing Droste and Nicoletta.