Finally they said, <We made a mistake keeping the small trouble here.>

<Yes, you did,> Henry agreed.

They didn’t like that. They didn’t like that at all.

<That Cyrus doesn’t know how to take care of a not-Wolf,> Henry said. <He could hurt her, even kill her.>

They snarled at him, angered by his words. But they didn’t attack. Instead they moved past him, one on either side, leaving his back exposed no matter which one he turned to face.

He felt them heading toward the center of the Courtyard, where they had staked out a small area as their own.

The Elders had been intrigued enough by Meg and Simon to return to the Courtyard and observe. But they were so used to being the ones who knew what the world needed that they hadn’t listened to Simon because that Cyrus was no threat to them.

Henry dropped to all fours and returned to his apartment in the Green Complex. But none of the other residents were there, and a sadness seemed to cling to the building. A piece was missing and might never be found.

He knew Simon was at the Wolfgard Complex, looking after Sam and helping Jane deal with Skippy while she tried to fix as much of the damage to the juvenile’s leg and ribs as she could. No one knew yet if it would be enough.

He should go to the Market Square and help Vlad deal with the humans, but he couldn’t. Right now, he didn’t want to deal with the humans; he wanted to kill them. Better to stay away so that he didn’t lash out and gut one of the female pack.

He shifted from spirit bear to his Grizzly form. Then he left the Green Complex and its scent of sadness.

• • •

They had made a mistake. They had wanted to watch an insignificant two-legged predator that caused trouble for its own kind, had wanted to understand what that kind of creature might do that could pose a danger to the earth natives who guarded the edges of the wild country and came in contact with small human settlements—what kind of danger it might pose to the smaller shifters who were living in settlements with humans and might absorb too much human badness and become a small enemy to their own kind.

They had thought the male was a troublesome predator but not a particularly dangerous one. But the male had shown cunning and a disregard for his own young. Having observed the other humans who entered the Courtyard and had young, they had not considered that he would do such a thing.

And the not-Wolf was the Wolfgard’s chosen mate? When they told the Wolf to consider how much human the terra indigene would keep, they had not considered this because this was not how new forms of earth natives came into being. Earth natives did not mate with the form they were absorbing. They mated with others of their own kind who had successfully absorbed the form.

But the Wolf and the not-Wolf had changed things. Had changed each other. Could they make something this new? Would the world want what might come from such a mating?

The not-Wolf amused them, even when she sounded like a scoldy squirrel. Maybe then most of all. And the stories of what she and the earth natives did here traveled into the wild country. But if she disappeared, there would be one last, sad story—because they, the Elders, had not understood that the troublesome male was truly dangerous.

They had needed to learn too much too quickly, and they had made a mistake.

Now they would fix it.

CHAPTER 24

Thaisday, Messis 23

Jimmy turned off the car’s radio and kept driving. The news was still talking about the weird snowfall that snarled up traffic on Crowfield Avenue in Lakeside. But he’d heard nothing that he needed to be concerned about.

His plan had worked perfectly, as he’d known it would. And he’d been lucky. He’d been a couple of cars back from the delivery entrance when that ITF agent walked out of the delivery area and dashed across the street. By the time he pulled up to the Liaison’s Office, the agent was inside the Stag and Hare.

His luck had held when he pulled in fast and clipped that Wolf, and the scar girl ran outside to help the freak. She didn’t even look at him until he grabbed her arm. Then she tried to fight, so he pulled out a blackjack and gave her a tap on the head. He opened the trunk and dumped her inside, taking a moment to feel her pockets and remove the folding razor. When his back was turned for those few seconds, the Wolf managed to get up on three legs and tried to bite him.

He hit the Wolf over the head with the blackjack, putting everything he had into the blow. Once the Wolf was down, he jumped into the car and pulled out onto Main Street, tires squealing as other drivers hit their brakes and their horns.

He was gone in a couple of minutes, with no one the wiser.

He’d been tempted to take the toll road once he left the city limits, either heading east toward Hubbney or following the shoreline of Lake Etu south and west. But toll roads meant people manning the booths. While there was no reason for anyone to be looking for him—not yet anyway—and no reason to think there was anything suspicious about a dark-skinned man driving an older-model car, the little cha-ching in the trunk might realize why they weren’t moving for that minute and start hollering and drawing attention to herself. Couldn’t have that, so he’d taken one of the roads that had a route sign and was going in the general direction he wanted to go.

He’d been on the road less than an hour when he spotted a rest area and a sign that indicated the next village was another thirty miles away. The rest area looked rustic. The crappers were probably nothing more than seats positioned over holes in the ground, but if there was no one else there, the place would serve just fine.