The wood stretched all around him. He lifted his muzzle to the wind, feeling the scents burst like pictures in his head. The tang of pine and oak and elm, the soft, grandmotherly smell of moss and fern, and overall the bitter slightly sweet scent of the decaying deadfall stirred with each lift of a paw as he moved deeper into the trees. Ahead, a whiff of hot blood as a squirrel or rabbit darted across his path, and a passing breeze from the fairgrounds carried the fuggy warm aromas of manure and sheep and man.

He welcomed his shift to aspect like a freeing breath. He needed the easing stretch of taut muscles as he ran under the growing moon, the welcome of the spring night to wrap around him like a balm. The simplicity of instinct where every moment exploded into being with the immediacy of battle and then fell away, quickly forgotten.

A crow swooped down from a great sycamore, wings spread on the wind, beak sharp as a dagger. He snapped at it, but it fluttered away and dove once more before settling on a dead branch nearby, watching him with cocked head and ruffled feathers. It was half again larger than any normal crow, with a sharp intelligence in its jet gaze and talons tipped in silver. David recognized the creature from Mac’s description.

Worry uncoiled from a deep part of his soul.

“This is fortunate. We were sent to find you, child of the wolf. And here you are, come to us.”

So focused was he on the crow, David was unaware of the man’s presence until he stepped from the long twilight shadows, the power moving over and through him like a storm wave buffeting the senses, dragging him under.

Imnada.

Yet not.

Human.

But much more.

He was large. Amend that—he was colossal. David, who looked up to few men, knew that in human form he’d be craning his neck to stare into this man’s dark impenetrable eyes. And he was old. Despite the lack of gray in his hair or lines on his face, wisdom burned in his eyes and age hung upon him like a cloak.

What do you want with me? Did Mac send you? Has something happened to . . .

He couldn’t complete the sentence. If Mac had been hurt or killed, it would be a nail through his heart.

If Beskin has harmed a hair on his head, I’ll rip him to shreds and gnaw on his bones. A growl rolled up the back of his throat, pulling his lips back in a show of long, deadly fangs, his fury lifting the hair all along his spine. And then I’ll do the same to any damned enforcer that crosses my path.

“The little dog owns a nasty bite.”

Where the crow had been now stood a woman. It would have been easy to mistake her for a boy, with her short cap of black curls, sharp-boned face, and imp’s grin. But as she glided across the grass, her cloak of ebony feathers billowed aside to reveal small upthrust breasts and rounded womanly hips, her skin glowing pearlescent in the gloom of the wood. She turned her rainbow eyes upon him and the fur along his back bristled, despite himself. He recognized her immediately: Badb, one of the true Fey. He’d never stood in the presence of one before. They didn’t bother themselves with the shapechangers. Never had. Not even in the days before the Fealla Mhòr, when the walls between the worlds held many gates and it was easy to find the right path to cross over and back.

Perhaps this was because the true Fey knew in their hearts that the Imnada were different—their magic unlike any they had seen or understood. Even with all the Fey’s powers, they held no real sway over the shapechangers. The Fey were not their gods, nor were the Imnada beholden to them as the Other were for their very existence. How it must have galled them.

Here to pick at the corpse, carrion crow? You’ll have to wait. I’m still breathing, no thanks to you.

“Fine words from a hunter of cutpurses and a stalker of whoremongers,” Badb mocked, her crimson lips widening, but the giant of a man laid a hand upon her shoulder, and she retreated.

Interesting. What kind of man could control one of the Fey? A man with enormous power, was the answer that shivered up from the base of David’s brain.

“Can you put Mr. St. Leger’s fears to rest, Badb?” the man asked.

The girl closed her eyes for a brief moment. “Flannery lives. More than that, I cannot see. The shifters cloud my vision and all is hazy.”

David relaxed a fraction of an inch. I’ve been warned about her, but who are you?

The man shrugged. “A traveler . . . a friend . . .”

Friends are a danger. They make you care. I prefer enemies.

“Those you seem to acquire with ease,” Badb snipped, tossing her cap of curls.

“Gray sent me to bring you to him,” the man said. “And the book.”

It remains within the fair, but it’s not safe to return. There are men searching for me.

“Ossine?”

Men in service to Victor Corey, a gang lord. A man with half of London in his pocket.

“And why would this lord of gangs be searching for you? Does he also desire to study Zwanis Xhelho’s Book of Seven Forgotten Stars?” the man asked.

Corey hunts a girl.

“The woman you take north to Dunsgathaic.”

That’s no concern of yours. Who are you? What are you?

“You sense the answer, but you fight it. I can feel your resistance.”

David reached out once more, his mind pressing, searching. You’re Imnada, but you don’t bear any signum I recognize. It’s no clan or holding I know, which is impossible. As younglings, we’re taught them all by the Ossine as part of our learning.

“The Lythene died out long ago. I am all that is left.”

A thought niggled at the base of David’s brain. Some story heard at his grandmother’s knee. A legend only half remembered.

The Ossine would never have allowed an entire clan to just die out without working to save it. That’s one of their jobs—to chart the bloodlines and to keep the aspects feasible in new generations.”

“The Ossine have the power over life . . . and death,” the man answered. “They have grown in importance since I knew them last.”

David had no answer, but more than enough questions.

He’d no time to ask any of them. Badb stepped forward, her cloak trailing over the ground with a soft rustle. She placed a hand on his head, ignoring the tension stringing his muscles, his lips drawn in a silent growl.

“You are dying, shapechanger. The curse and the draught working in harmony threaten to kill you. It is only a matter of time.”

And whose fault is that, Fey? It was you and your companion who offered us this devil’s solution.

“Enough,” the dark-haired giant said. “If there are enemies in these woods, we must be swift away to Addershiels. Take us to retrieve the book. We cannot leave without . . .”

But David was gone. He tore away from them, losing himself in the deeper trees, muzzle lifted to the air, his body alive with fear and anger. She was in the woods . . . somewhere. He smelled the panic on her skin, he felt the mad gallop of her heart, heard her shout in his head.

Callista was in danger.

Through the thick tangle of ancient trees, light filtered weakly from above to lie green and gray upon old moss-covered trunks and sheened the pale leaves of ash and oak. He leapt over a rotten stump, slid on his belly beneath a web of bindweed as snaring as a spider’s trap. There. He veered free of the thick, grasping undergrowth to find himself on a beaten-earth track. Up ahead, the chase came closer. He heard the crack and snap of bracken as it was shoved aside in haste, a cry quickly stifled as she fell roughly.

I’m here. You’re safe. I’ll not let them harm you.

Callista broke through the trees, her hair falling free of its pins and speckled with leaves, his greatcoat dragging half off her shoulders, her satchel banging against her thighs. She skidded to a halt as she caught sight of him emerging from the night.

“David!” she gasped.

It’s me. What’s wrong?

“They’ve found us. He’s just behind . . .”

She stumbled forward, the satchel dragging her shoulder. David heard the twang of a broken wire and the squeak of a pivot, his body in flight before the spark hit the flint.

Spring gun.

A roar shook his blood, pain shot through his side, and he fell hard to the ground, the wind crushed out of him and every new breath shooting fire along his nerves, the trees swirling as if a great wind shook them. He heard a scream and felt a hand upon his neck, clutching at his fur.

“David! Please. Look at me. Don’t close your eyes.”

A roaring like the rush of a waterfall filled his head . . . the trees swept into a hurricane of color and sound . . . a great tear opening within a sky of sparkling cloud.

Don’t follow the path. Stay with me here.

Callista’s voice echoed in his head. He tried to answer, tried to hold to this world by his fingertips, the hole pulling him toward it, but his thoughts grew foggy and finally, he let go.

* * *

The wolf was David. The wolf was David and he’d saved her life. The wolf was David, he’d saved her life, and he was not dead. He wasn’t. He couldn’t be. She wouldn’t allow it, and if anyone could fight death tooth and claw, she could. If not, what good was her power of necromancy, anyway?

Magic seeped up from the ground like mist. It crackled the air and tingled along her skin as it wrapped itself around the wolf’s body. Then the drifting swirl of magic retreated, and David lay sprawled on his side, legs drawn up, one arm bent underneath him, another flung out, fingers dug into the soil. His ribs expanded ever so slowly, each breath dragged free of him in a painful sucking wet wheeze.

The door to Annwn cracked open and a bitter cold rushed to meet the hot wind, the violent mixture lifting leaves and bending branches. The pressure beneath her breastbone increased as if her ribs might crack wide, and she pressed a hand to her chest, unable to breathe.

A figure came up behind her. “I’d say good riddance and may he burn in hell, but Corey’ll have my head if he dies.”

She flinched but was too numb to care and too tired to run. She could hardly work up the energy to turn and face him.

“Here”—he tossed her a flask—“scoop up what blood you can. There’s enough leaking out of him, should be easy. If we’re lucky, Corey will be happy enough at having his bride returned that he’ll overlook the shifter’s death. And I’ll still get my fifty pounds.”

She gripped the flask, disgust rolling her belly. A crow circled, alighting on a nearby branch. A scavenger waiting its chance to feast.

“He’s dying,” she sobbed. “Just leave him to pass through the doorway in peace.”

He struck her a hard blow to the side of the head, leaving her ears ringing, jaw sore. “The creature killed three of my men. As long as Corey wants the thing’s blood to sell and so long as it’s my skin if he don’t get what he wants, you’ll do as I say. Now, get busy.”

Sell his blood? David had accused Corey of madness. Perhaps he was right. She could think of no other reason for such a gruesome desire. She bent closer to David, gently rolling him over, in the hope that his injuries would not be as bad as they appeared.

She closed her eyes

They were so much worse. She turned aside long enough to retch, wiping her mouth on her greatcoat, smelling the spicy musky scent of him in the heavy wool. “I can’t. I won’t.”

The man dragged her to her feet by her arm. “Fine. Leave him. I’ll tell Corey I got here too late. He was already dead. Half pay is better than none.”

She dug her heels in, fighting him with all her strength as he tried to drag her away, but he struck her again. And again, until her teeth felt loose in her skull and her jaw throbbed. “He said he wants you. He didn’t say in what shape.”

“David!” she cried, though she knew it was useless.

“You think the shifter will save you? He couldn’t even save himself.”

She looked back over her shoulder, straining to see through the dark. Was that a hand moving? Did he lift his head?

She couldn’t be certain, and then the trees closed around him and he was lost from view.

You claim friendship? Help her.

The thought burst in her brain. She frowned in confusion. What did he mean? Who was he speaking to?

“That shifter can’t save her.” A towering black shape stepped into the path ahead of them, head scraping the sky, arms folded over his chest, face hard as stone. “But this one can.”