I rolled my eyes. “Half or more of the jobs you do involve getting dangerous rogues off the streets. You told me way, way back that you chose the Crow and Hammer so you could catch bad guys.”

His grin finally appeared. “I don’t remember that.”

“You definitely did.” I bumped his shoulder with mine. “You’re the Crow and Hammer’s rock-star mage and someday, Darius will ask you to be the next guild master. When he does, you can decide for yourself if that’s what you want—not your parents or anyone else.”

Emotion flashed across his face, then he pulled me against his side in a tight hug. I got my arms around his broad shoulders and squeezed. He didn’t need a famous guild or a prestigious job to be the finest mage the Sinclair academy had produced.

His arms relaxed and we straightened on the seat. Leaning against the window, he stretched his legs out. “What time is it? I’ve completely lost track.”

“Not sure.” I squinted out the window, trying to gauge how late it was. “The druidess should be here soon to set up Sin’s exorcism, plus Sin had an epiphany and ran off to find Kelvin.”

“Ran off where? Kelvin is here—in the guest room at the end of the east wing. Mom said he wasn’t feeling well.”

I was about to explain my and Sin’s realizations, but my attention caught on the grounds below. Apprehension tingled along my nerves. “Aaron? Do you see that?”

He turned to peer through the glass. Three stories below, the lawn swept toward the dark lagoon, the surrounding trees bathed in the moon’s pale glow.

A shape drifted into view. Moving on four legs, it slunk toward the manor.

Behind it, a second low shape prowled out of the darkness. Two more appeared from the trees on the other side. Another darting silhouette trotted into sight. Some were monstrously large, while others were small and agile.

Werewolves. Werewolves were emerging from the forest and circling the manor, their pale eyes glowing in the full moon’s silver light.

Chapter Twenty-One

Aaron burst out of his room, shouting for his father, Kai, and Ezra. I followed him, but as he charged down the stairs, I wheeled into the east corridor.

I raced to the door at the end and hammered it with my fist. “Kelvin? Sin?”

No answer. I grabbed the handle and jiggled it. Locked. “Kelvin!”

“Tori?” Kai jogged up to me, his suit jacket over one arm. “What’s going on? Why is Aaron shouting?”

“Can you break this door open?” I demanded.

His surprise only lasted a moment before he nodded. I jumped back as he sized up the door, then unleashed a powerful side kick. His heel slammed into the spot beside the handle. Wood splintered.

I shoved the door open and ran inside. A suitcase sat open on the floor and the bedcovers were heaped over a large body. Light bloomed as Kai hit the switch.

“Kelvin?” I asked sharply, striding to his bedside. “Are you …”

My voice died. Kelvin lay on his back, his open eyes staring blankly at the bed’s frilly canopy.

Kai swore. As he leaned over the man, checking for a pulse, I backed away, my stomach twisting. The alpha shifter had entered the castle last night on a mission. He’d been on the third floor. Had this been his assignment? To take out the master alchemist who’d been unraveling the mad alchemist’s work?

“He’s alive,” Kai said tersely. “He’s been incapacitated, probably by a poison.”

I jolted at the word “poison,” then remembered that in mythic lingo, any potion with harmful effects was called a poison. “Where is Sin? She was looking for Kelvin. She—”

I froze. On the dresser beside the bed sat a vial of pink liquid. It was the same luridly-colored concoction Kelvin had given Sin yesterday. But Sin had told me she’d taken her last dose earlier tonight. Brian had given it to her.

Brian …

Brian, standing at the apothecary counter, warning me that the almonds in the large jar beside him were poisonous. Brian, offering me candies that tasted like nuts. Brian, a transmutation expert’s apprentice. Brian, a genius alchemist to rival his master—or so Sin had claimed.

A transmutation apprentice, living and working at the edge of the academy grounds, with the knowledge, skill, and expertise to alter shifters with an addictive potion. Was he the one behind all this? Is that what Sin had realized, and why she’d run to find Kelvin?

Since Kelvin had survived the poison this long, he could hang on a little longer. I grabbed the pink vial off the dresser, rushed past Kai, and sprinted down the hall with the skirt of my gown hiked up above my knees. I took the stairs two at a time, hurtled into the entrance hall—and came up short with a shocked scream.

A pair of monstrous, mutant shifters spun to face me, their jowls dripping white foam on the carpet. Bulky muscles swelled over their humped shoulders, their split skin oozing reddish miasma.

Kai ran into my back. His arm clamped around me, heaving me off the floor, and his other hand shot toward the ceiling. The air sizzled.

Electricity erupted from every lightbulb and outlet in the entrance hall. Crackling white power leaped into his body, and I went rigid as the current flowed through me, all the hair on my body standing on end.

The wolves leaped at us.

Kai swept his arm down. A twisting bolt as thick as his wrist exploded from his hand and struck the two wolves in midair. They went rigid, every muscle locked, then crashed to the floor, twitching and smoking.

As the flow of electricity ceased, darkness fell over us. Most of the lightbulbs had shattered, showering the floor with broken glass. A few flickering bulbs cast weak light over the scorched wainscoting.

“Holy crap, Kai,” I gasped. “That was some Thor-level shit.”

“Kai!” Aaron ran into the entrance hall. His parents and several staff members followed him, their faces white.

Kai set my feet back on the floor. “Why are there werewolves in the manor?”

“They’re circling the manor,” Aaron replied. “I don’t know how many are out there, but it won’t be long until more force their way in.”

Kai nodded, calm and cool as always. “Who’s still here to help us fight the—”

“No one,” Tobias cut in, stepping past Aaron into the center of the entrance hall. “They all left. I can call them back, but they’ll be at least fifteen minutes.”

The mutant wolves would swarm the manor long before help arrived.

“There are ten non-combat house staff here,” Tobias continued, his jaw tight, “plus a dozen students who are staying over Christmas break. There’s only one staff member on duty in the dorm. If the wolves attack there, they’ll be slaughtered.” He hesitated as though he were calculating how to safeguard everyone. “If we can get the students to the house—or go to the dorm—”

Aaron unceremoniously pushed his father out of the way and spoke to Kai. “We’ll be too exposed outside. With so few fighters protecting so many, we need to focus on defense. The tower can only be accessed by one staircase.”

“I’ll take the house staff up there,” Kai said. “I can hold off the shifters for a while.”

Aaron turned to Valerie. “Mom, help Kai protect the tower.”

She nodded, her face slack with surprise at Aaron’s sudden transformation to a decisive team leader.

“You want to leave the two of them here—” Tobias began.

“The tower is defensible.” Aaron spoke over his father, his blue eyes blazing and no hesitation in his voice. “Taking non-combats outside will get them killed. The only ones leaving this house are you and me. Only we can survive the wolves while we make a run for the dorms.” Aaron looked around. “Where’s Ezra?”

“Here!”

The call came from above us. Ezra swung over the second-floor railing, and a gust of wind blew us back a step as he broke his fall. He straightened, his arms loaded with gear. He tossed a sheathed sword to Aaron, then a pair of katanas to Kai. My gear belt was slung over his shoulder, along with a tangle of clothing, and he held his pole-arm in one hand.

“Sorry,” he said. “Took me a minute to grab everything.”

Aaron flashed him a terse smile as he unsheathed his sword. “Ezra, I want you and Tori to—”

“I need to find Sin,” I interrupted. “Has anyone seen her?”

“I saw her with Brian shortly before the werewolves attacked,” Valerie answered. “He was leading Sin outside. She seemed inebriated.”

Shit. Sin had seemed tipsy to me too, and I was betting Brian had slipped her something to make her pliant.

“I think Brian is the alchemist who mutated the shifters,” I blurted. “And he may have kidnapped Sin, but I don’t know why.”

A moment of silence followed my wild proclamation.

“Brian?” Aaron repeated incredulously. He processed that information. “In that case, Tori and Ezra, your priority is Sin and Brian. Find them as quickly as you can. Dad, where’s that druidess?”

“She texted me an hour ago that she was running behind.”

“Warn her what she’s about to walk into. You and Mom need to get your switches, then we’ll move.”

Tobias jerked his chin in a nod, then he and Valerie rushed up the stairs. As Kai tied his pair of katana to his belt, Ezra pulled leather pants and a hoodie off his shoulder and tossed them to me. Oh thank god, I didn’t have to battle werewolves in an evening gown.

I turned my back on the guys and yanked down my dress’s short zipper. Slipping the straps off, I let it fall to the floor and pulled the hoodie on. I hoped they weren’t watching, because no bra had worked with my dress and, well, I hadn’t wanted underwear lines either. My nude thong covered basically nothing.

I shimmied into my leather pants, then Ezra handed me my fully loaded gear belt, alchemy bombs clinking against each other. I buckled it on and slipped Sin’s potion vial into a pouch as Valerie and Tobias raced back down the stairs—the former carrying two long daggers already sparking with fire, while the latter had a sword as large as Aaron’s.