<Why are those two huddled together like that?> Virgil asked, taking a seat next to Tolya.

<Fear?> Tolya replied dryly. Virgil had also recognized that slight distance Jana had put between herself and the other females and hadn’t included her in the huddle.

<I haven’t snarled at any of them today. Not even the wolverine. Haven’t even needed the Me Time cell lately.> Virgil sounded disappointed.

Tolya continued to study the women as rest of the Sanguinati arrived and filled the chairs. <If they were prey, who would you go for?>

<Barbara Ellen and Abigail,> Virgil replied without hesitation. Then he did hesitate. <The wolverine looks like she’s with them, but she’s not. At least, not all the way. She’s caught the scent of something that makes her wary.>

Not how he would have described it, but it matched his thinking. Jana must already know what Barbara Ellen wanted to tell them—and she was keeping watch instead of standing with her friend. <Do you remember the warning Jackson sent us? The picture with the people made of black stones?>

<What about it?>

<The unknown female with Barbara Ellen … >

<Was the wolverine.> Virgil said, finishing the thought. <The Hope pup drew her before any of us knew what she looked like.>

Even in the picture, Deputy Jana had been keeping watch.

Tolya looked around and realized one of them was still missing. <Where is Kane?>

<The Becky girl found a hairbrush and wanted to make him pretty.>

Tolya didn’t smile. Did. Not. Smile. He did, however, find it fascinating that the Wolves displayed such a high tolerance for certain humans. He couldn’t imagine Virgil or Kane allowing any other child to brush them to make them pretty. Maybe it was Becky Gott’s simplicity and innocence. Maybe Wolfgard young—at least the ones who were able to shift to human form—did the same kinds of things as a way to learn. He’d probably never know, but he did understand that every human Virgil tolerated made him a more dangerous threat to the rest of the humans because he was taking them into his pack—and having lost one pack, he would kill anything that threatened this new one.

Tolya said, “Shall we begin?” When they all nodded—all except the three human women—he focused on Barbara Ellen. “There is something you need to tell us?”

Barbara Ellen looked around the room, just as he had a moment ago. But her skin was so pale now, the freckles were the only color left in her face.

“I didn’t expect … I thought …” She took a deep breath and blew it out. “Can I tell it as a story?”

“This is a teaching story?” Virgil asked, leaning forward and bracing his forearms on his thighs.

“A family story to impart information rather than entertain,” Jana replied.

All the terra indigene nodded. Tolya wondered if the females understood how closely their words would be heeded. Entertainment, if not appealing to an individual, could be ignored. A teaching story never was.

Barbara Ellen glanced at Abigail. So. This story was not about Barbara Ellen or her family. She was the designated teller—but had Jana helped shape the information into a teaching story to make sure he and Virgil heard what they needed to hear?

“Once upon a time,” Barbara Ellen began, “there was a young Intuit girl who came from a family of gamblers and swindlers. Being Intuits, the gamblers used their abilities to sense things that were tied into their skill with cards and other games of chance. They knew when to bet and when to fold—and sometimes they cheated by folding when they could have won a hand so that the people playing with them wouldn’t start to wonder about why they won so much. And the swindlers always sensed who would be most vulnerable to whatever con they were playing.

“Sometimes they worked different swindles in the same town or split up and worked in a couple of towns close to each other. Sometimes the whole family would work one con. But they always stayed in touch and they always left the area around the same time because moving around was safer—and because there was less chance that one of the youngsters might say something that made a mark realize he was dealing with Intuits.

“See, their being Intuits was the big family secret, the thing you could never ever tell anyone else.” Barbara Ellen looked around the room. “You could never tell. And if you were a part of the family, you could never leave.”

“And if you did leave?” Tolya asked softly.

“Death,” Abigail whispered, her blue eyes blind and staring. “If you’re out of the life, there’s always the chance you’ll snitch on the rest of them, so … death.”

Barbara Ellen resumed the story. “The girl’s Intuit gift was unusual. Some people believe that gemstones of all kinds have healing or magical properties and can help the person who wears them. But the girl knew exactly which stone would resonate with a particular person. Even if a hundred stones were on a table, she could tell which one truly suited a person and would bring good things, positive things, into that person’s life—or help keep bad things away. But just as some stones would be good for a person, other stones would open a person up to bad things. Sometimes little things, like spilling coffee on your shirt just before an important meeting or missing out on having lunch with a friend because your car had a flat tire. Little things, day after day. And not so little things. Like sitting down at a poker table and gambling away your family’s life savings.

“The girl and her uncle had a particular part to play in the rest of the family’s endeavors. They would rent a booth at a fair or an open market. The uncle would repair jewelry and clean jewelry while the girl did the patter about choosing a stone for luck or love or good fortune. Some of them were tumbled stones you would keep in a bowl while others had a hole through them so they could be strung on a cord or a gold or silver chain—which the uncle would sell to the mark. And because the girl was young and pretty, people never suspected they were being cheated in some way.

“The thing was, if the uncle had a feeling the mark had money or something else of use to the family, he would signal the girl to select a dissonant stone—something that would sour the person’s life in some way and make them vulnerable. And the girl did it because she was young and they were her family and she depended on them for her survival. So someone would carry his ‘lucky’ stone into the saloon where the girl’s father was playing poker—and end up owing so much to all the players at the table that he would be ruined financially. Or a woman would wear a necklace that was supposed to bring her good fortune and end up being dragged into an alley where she’d be roughed up—and sometimes worse—before having her purse stolen.

“The girl didn’t understand these things when she was young, but when she reached her teens and realized what happened to the people who were given bad stones …”

“She ran away,” Abigail whispered. “She kept running and hiding, choosing places too small to be of interest to the family, or hiding in larger cities, doing whatever work she could to get by. She was in one of those cities when she met a kind man who fell in love with her. She married him but she was too afraid to tell him the truth about her abilities or her past, and when he found out, he … didn’t love her anymore.”

Tolya noticed Barbara Ellen’s face settling into a tiny frown—noticed Deputy Jana’s sharp look. <They’ve heard a lie,> he said to the rest of the terra indigene. <Something isn’t the same as the story Abigail told them before.>

<Do we challenge?> Yuri asked.

<No,> Virgil replied. <We don’t challenge—yet—and we don’t trust.>

<Agreed,> Tolya said.

A tear ran down Abigail’s face. “They’ll come here. On the train. Her father likes to travel by train. Sooner or later, they’ll come. To gamble, to plunder. To kill. They’ll come.” She was still telling a story instead of admitting she was talking about herself.

“What are these humans called?” Tolya asked.

“Blackstone. They’re the Blackstone Clan.”

Abigail and Barbara Ellen leaned against each other, exhausted. And Jana?

<Are you going to talk to Deputy Jana about the picture the Hope pup drew?> he asked Virgil.

<Not yet,> Virgil replied.

“Thank you for this story,” Tolya said, addressing the humans. “You have given us many important things to consider.” More than you realize. “I hope you can put this aside now and enjoy the rest of your day off.”

“We’re all helping Kenneth and Evan at their house,” Jana said with a strained smile. “Today’s plan is to haul the rest of the personal belongings out of the house so the cleaners can come in later this morning and scrub it from top to bottom. Then we’ll give the children’s bedrooms a fresh coat of paint.”

Tolya thought that sounded like an appalling way to spend a day off, but he smiled since he was pretty sure that was the correct thing to do. “Then we won’t keep you any longer.”

The terra indigene waited until the humans left the conference room. Then they all looked at each other before Tolya turned to Virgil. “Black stones. Blackstones.”

Virgil nodded. “Looks like the Hope pup was right about that too.”

* * *

* * *

“Walker’s General Store, Jesse speaking.”

“Jesse Walker, this is—”

Recognizing Tolya’s voice, Jesse focused on the new member of her family and said firmly, “Down, Cutie.”

A beat of silence. “I beg your pardon?”

His tone of voice, somewhere between bewildered and insulted, made her laugh. “I was talking to the puppy. She’s in her pen”—Jesse took the couple of steps needed to reach the pen and quiet the puppy, who had been trying to climb out to be closer to her—“and has to stay there.” To make sure the pup did, she crouched beside the pen and began petting.

Another beat of silence. “You named her Cutie?”

“Are you going to tell Virgil?”

“No. Absolutely not.” Now he sounded horrified.

“Her official name is Cory Walker, but Rachel insists on calling her Cutie-pup or Cutie for short.”

“Rachel Wolfgard named the puppy?”

“She did.”

Tolya sighed, a long exhalation.

Jesse’s humor faded when she realized she’d stopped petting the puppy and now had her right hand wrapped around her aching left wrist. “You didn’t call to ask about the puppy.”

“No, I called to ask if you had heard of the Blackstone Clan. They’re a family of Intuit gamblers and swindlers.”

A chill went through Jesse. “I’ve never heard of them. Why have you?”

“Abigail Burch is from that family and says she has been hiding from them for many years now. She believes they’ll kill her if they find her.”