I’d told her everything we’d learned, and she’d started calling my possible ancestors the old wolves. I liked that name, even though I wished I had something more accurate to call them.

“How the heck are we supposed to find one person in a whole town?” Mac asked. “Google him? Social media?”

“Doubt he has a Twitter account.” I spotted a church on the other side of the square. “Let’s ask in there. Churches often know all the people around.”

“Think your dad was religious?”

I shrugged. “We can only hope.”

The church itself was a quiet, serene space. Small and ancient, it was filled with little wooden benches that faced the altar at the front. The stained glass was beautifully ornate, but the rest of the building was simple in its decoration.

An old priest came out from a back room, eyes brightening when he saw us. “Good morning. How can I help you?”

“We’re looking for someone,” I said. “Thomas Mackay. He used to live here.”

“Ah, that he did. Come to pay your respects, have you?”

The words hit me like a fist to the gut. Mac gripped my hand, and I managed to keep my face bland. Mostly.

The priest seemed to have noticed that I was a bit off and frowned. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t know?”

“Um, no. But that’s all right. Does he have family in the area?” Did I have family? Not that I could really consider them that. Perhaps they were related to me by blood, but having never met them, they were no more than strangers.

“I’m afraid not. But he’s buried in the old cemetery on the west side of town. Back left.”

“Thank you.” I turned to go, then looked at the priest again. “You never knew him, did you?”

“Alas, I did not. Knew his sister before she died, that’s how I knew of him.”

“A sister?” I’d had an aunt.

He nodded. “Died of the flu. Nasty thing.”

Damn. “Thank you.”

He nodded, watching us as we left.

“Well, that’s a bummer,” I said.

“To say the least.” Mac searched the square in front of us, then pointed. “I think the cemetery is that way. Want to go?”

I nodded. “Might as well.”

We set off across town, my nerves making me jittery the closer we got.

“How do you feel?” Mac asked.

“Relieved and disappointed at the same time.”

“Makes sense.”

“It’s not like I knew him. Or wanted to know him. Or like he wanted to know me.” My throat tightened a bit at the thought, and I blinked away tears.

“We make our own family,” Mac said. “That’s the most important bit.”

I smiled at her. “You’re right. And we’ve got a good one.”

She grinned and nodded.

The cemetery was an ancient place, full of crumbling headstones covered in lichen. We searched the rows at the back and found my father’s headstone quickly. It was a simple affair—just a name and a date.

“He died when I was ten,” I murmured. That was a lot of years during which he could have visited me.

Mac gripped my shoulder, and I leaned into her. I’d seemed to need a lot of hand holding in these last couple days, but I cut myself some slack.

I frowned, searching the headstone for clues…but what the hell was I going to find here? Nothing. Not on this gravestone, at least.

I pulled the necklace from around my neck and looked at it. The metal was tarnished and old, the locket dented at the back. It was a twisted knot design, pretty in a simple way.

My gaze landed on the headstone next to my father’s, and I spotted the same design at the top of the slab. The name underneath was Dierdre Mackay, and it looked like she’d lived before my father. There was overlap, though, enough that she might be his mother or aunt.

I knelt in front of her headstone and ran my fingertips over the letters. I was more drawn to this grave than I was to my father’s, though I had no idea why.

The twisted knot carving caught my attention again, and I realized that the center of the knot was a particularly deep indention. It was the exact size as the locket in my hand, so I raised the little piece of metal and pushed it into the hole.

Magic sparked, and I gasped.

Mac knelt by my side, and we watched as light swirled in front of the headstone. A moment later, it coalesced to form the shadowy figure of an older woman—seventy, at least, with silver hair and finely lined skin.

I stared at her, caught by surprise.

“Well?” she asked. “Why have you awakened me? Who are you?”

“Um, I’m Eve. I mean, Verity…Mackay.” I used my given name and my father’s last name, just in case it would help her recognize me.

Her eyes widened. “No!”

“I am.”

Her face softened. “Well, I’ll be. I’m your Great-Aunt Dierdre. I used to look after your father when he was a lad.”

“Really?” Even though I didn’t love my father—how could I, when I’d never met him?—I still liked hearing the stories of my family.

“Indeed. A troublesome lad he was. I knew he had a little daughter, just as I knew he didn’t visit.” She tutted. “A shame, that.”

“You knew about me?”

She nodded. “For a short while, I did. Died before I could visit, though.”

My heart clutched. “Definitely a shame.”

“Why are you here, lass?”

“I need to know what I am. Apparently, I’m a type of shifter that should be extinct. Or something. We don’t have all the info yet. But I was hoping my father might know. Maybe he was one of them.”

“Something special?” She shook her head. “No, not him. Average as they came. Wolf shifter, medium size and strength. It’s your mother you’ll be wanting to look into, lass.”

“No, she was a regular wolf shifter. I knew her all the way up until I was fifteen. I’d have noticed if she was something different.”

“Would you?”

I hesitated. No, maybe I wouldn’t have. I’d been fifteen. Absorbed in my own life until my mother was taken too soon. “Wouldn’t she have told me?”

Great-Aunt Dierdre looked at the locket that I’d pressed into her headstone. “I’d say that locket was her way of telling you.”

“What do you mean?”

“Tom gave that to your mother, that much I know. It’s a family heirloom, it is. And your mother knew I would allow you to contact me.”

“You knew her?”

“A bit. She grew up here, too, you know. I’d liked her since she was a girl. Knew her well enough to know she was too good for the likes of your father.”

“Really?” She’d only ever said she’d grown up in a small village, pushing me off when I’d asked for details. It wasn’t to my credit that I’d never pressed for more information, but I’d thought I had all the time in the world.

The ghost nodded. “She lived at the edge of the village in a small house with her parents. Did so until she ran off with my nephew. Never came back. Clever girl.”

“She joined the pack in Guild City.”