Wade chews his meat, his expression turning thoughtful and vague. “What do you call a werebeast who can’t shift?” he finally asks.
“Poor sucker,” Kellan tosses across the table with a grin. We all laugh, and for the first time in weeks, I don’t want to physically remove him from my presence.
“I know.” Danica halts her fork halfway to her mouth, her eyes sparkling with mischief. “Unglamorous.”
Wade thumps his mug down with a huff. “Not every joke has the same punch line.”
“What’s the answer, then?” Idallia asks, her throaty chuckle made to haunt me.
“Human.” Wade looks around the table, his brows rising expectantly. “If they can’t shift, they’re not a shifter. They’re human.”
“Yeah, that one doesn’t work.” Maia’s flat assessment leaves Arran’s lips twitching as he tries not to laugh.
Kellan spreads his hands. “It’s not false.”
“It’s not funny, either,” Danica says around a mouthful of her lunch.
“Ah! Well!” Wade lifts his mug, signaling for more ale. “They can’t all be winners.”
“You should’ve led with the worst one, not the best.” Idallia pokes at her meal without eating it, even now that it’s cooled off. Her mug sits on the table, almost untouched.
Leaning toward her, I frown. “I thought you were hungry.” Her frost-and-sunshine scent fills my nostrils. Greedy for another breath of her, I stay close.
She gazes at her bowl of cheesy potatoes like she wants to eat but just can’t. She tugs at the silver band around her neck. “I’m still…thinking.”
“Would soup help?” She seems to accept liquids better than anything else.
“I don’t know.” She turns to me, our gazes colliding. She’s so close that I see the starbursts in her eyes. “Everything tastes weird, especially since I put on the torque.”
My pulse takes off with a thud. I was trying to help her, but what if I made things worse?
I lean back when my dragon reaches for her with shadows that nearly cross my skin. “Sometimes spells go wrong. If it doesn’t feel right, take it off.”
“I think I just need to get used to it.” She touches the torque, one finger sliding over the silver. Her nail is tinged blue with cold, like in the dead of winter. “It’s got to stop prickling at some point.” Her eyes meet mine again, her worried frown making me want to lay answers at her feet. “Right?”
I nod, though I don’t know. Another day, another lie. My meal turns to lead in my stomach as she lowers her hand and flexes her visibly stiff fingers.
“Why don’t you go outside and get some sunshine?” I suggest. “It’ll help. After, you can come back and finish your meal.”
Nodding, she looks at me oddly as she stands, something suspicious flickering in her gaze. Unease drops through me like a rockslide, but when she shivers in the hot tavern, her body confused and her stomach rebelling, I know I did the right thing.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
IDALLIA
Bale was right. A walk in the sun did me good. I was able to eat after that, then sleep, just like everyone else, though I’d have preferred to be with my birds.
Fyrestar, Rim, and I are back together now, though, and Bale asks me to choose the location for our stakeout north of Porthwood. I’m not sure why. Is it a test?
Do better.
We explore from above, and I look down at the treetops, searching for the perfect place to hide out and wait. We need a slight clearing to land in without too much open space, or else disappearing into the forest becomes difficult. I have to choose before nightfall when any Bloodwold vampires might emerge from their hideouts—likely the tunnels just over the border—and time is running short.
I glance east, scowling at the visible scars on the land, earth dug up with no care and obviously no intention of mining if the lack of equipment is anything to go by. From talks with Bale, I already know the gildenfae say that any nearby ore goes north into Wyndwood and not east toward Bloodwold. I don’t think Bale has told the Were King about it, though.
After a few large circles that don’t take us too far from Porthwood, I pick a less dense section of the deciduous woods that thicken to the north. There are paths, mostly animal tracks, but no roads going through here, which makes it accessible but not truly open, and a good way for marauding blood thieves to sneak up on the city.
We land in a clearing big enough to accommodate Bale in his dragon form. He shifts as he lands, a man again looking at me with an odd expression. I slide off Fyrestar’s back, suddenly wary. Rim lands next to us.
