“It’s been small rodents, for the most part.” Savi’s gaze is cool as she looks from Winter to Ariel, then back again. “The corpses are staged. Eviscerated creatively and presented in the bloodiest possible way. For maximum effect, one assumes. That’s initially why I thought it was perhaps a disaffected acolyte, acting in the spirit of overzealous mourning for their lost goddess, as acolytes are known to do.”
I am not conversant on acolytes. Still. “A random minion, mourning or otherwise, wouldn’t be able to sneak all around Winter’s land placing disgusting things on the cottage steps and then disappearing again without leaving any kind of scent trail.” I nod at Savi. “I know you’ve been scent-scrubbing the kills themselves, but they should still have left trails coming to and from the kill sites. There should be hints all over the woods.”
“I only do that when I’m in my cottage,” Savi says, with a careless wave of her hand. “Who can relax when the air is full of viscera and ill intent?”
Who indeed.
This time, there’s no avoiding the narrow way that Ty is glaring at me. But I have to hand it to him. If I wasn’t already perfectly aware that he didn’t know about any of this, I wouldn’t be able to tell that from his expression. It’s obvious to me that I’m going to have to answer a whole lot of questions later, but for right now he’s letting it ride.
It’s one of the many reasons he’s the greatest werewolf king in generations. Which is neither here nor there, but something in me warms just the same.
“There is a lot of lore to wade through concerning how and if the death goddess can reemerge,” Savi says, nodding in my direction. “Attempting to glean information from magical sources that do not wish to share is always challenging, of course. Scrolls and spells can be very opinionated. They like to keep their secrets to themselves.”
She waves her hand as if that is a matter of such obvious fact that it doesn’t require any more discussion. It reminds me, not for the first time, that sorcery is a very different kind of magic than mine. Vampirism too. So many stuffy and courtly traditions, ancient hierarchies that aren’t always based on obvious merit, and endless intellectual chess matches in and around the things that magic can do, or make someone else do, or be used widely to make whole populations do.
Everything about their kind of magic is a complication layered on a stack of other, deeper, older complications.
Wolves have always taken pride in being different. Simpler. More basic—but also more real, if you ask me. Yet suddenly I wonder if that’s part of why we’ve always been kept on the outskirts of real power. If it weren’t for Ty making himself such a force to be reckoned with in this valley, and in the whole of the North American West, would he and I even be standing here right now? Ty—awerewolf king, notthewerewolf king—on equal footing with one of the only remaining known sorcerers and the most legendary vampire around?
If it weren’t for Ty, we would have as much say in the magical goings-on in the valley, and the rest of the world, as any random truck-driving and typically larcenous ogre. Which is to say, none.
“There’s only one way that Vinca could rise again, according to every source I could locate,” Savi continues. “If I could find this, so could someone else. It requires a very old, very powerful ritual called the Three Sisters.”
Ariel makes a noise. “The blood of a maiden, a mother, and a crone.”
Savi inclines her head. “You’re familiar with the ritual.”
“I’ve seen it performed before.” That cool, assessing gaze of his sweeps over Savi, then moves to Winter. Then me, and I have to school myself not to shiver. “The obvious conclusion is that someone has cast the three of you in these roles.”
Winter makes a face. “I’m literally none of those things. Neither is Maddox.” She shrugs in Savi’s direction. “Still not entirely sure what you are, if I’m honest.”
But I can see it. “It would take some interpretation,” I say. I look at Winter. “You’re brand-new to being an oracle. A babe in the woods, really. That would make you the maiden. I’m the fated mate of the local werewolf king. The preordained mother to not only his future young but, theoretically, to the whole of the pack. Metaphorically speaking.”
I can’t help but look at Ty then. He looks ... not precisely amused. But not furious, either.
“Theoretically,” he rumbles.
I move on to Savi. “And you are an extremely wise woman of a great many years. If not whole millennia or two. It’s unclear.”
“I accept and revere crone energy,” Savi says, with one of her mysterious smiles.
“It would make sense,” Winter agrees after a moment. “Because it requires interpretation, maybe, but it also requires knowing who we are. Vinca does. She was in my head and all up in our business for a while there. And she certainly knows who fought her at Crater Lake.” She blows out a breath. “But I haven’t seen any sacrifices.”
Ariel moves from over near Ty to Winter’s side in one of those tricky vampire flashes, flickering out in one spot and into another.I repress the urge to flinch when he’s suddenlyright here, putting his hand on the nape of Winter’s neck. About a foot away from me.
This is something that clearly soothes her when I’m pretty sure all that cold would be the end of me.
“I’ve seen them. I removed them.” When Winter stares at him, Ariel inclines his head slightly. “I assumed these offerings were little more than commentary on my choice of consort. I treated them with the deference such commentary deserves.”
I assume that’s code for him tossing them in the trash and erasing the evidence, but vampire-style, with tricks and flash.
But he’s still looking down at Winter. “I assumed that if they were anything more than that, you would have had a vision.”
“Yeah,” Winter agrees. “You’d think.” She shakes her head. “I can’t actually tell if I’m not having visions the way I used to or if they’re coming out wrong, somehow. I can read cards for randoms in the coffee-stand line, but my dreams have gone all swampy. I definitely haven’t seen anything about anyone getting sacrificed. The last time around, Vinca had no qualms whatsoever about giving me hints of what was to come. Or letting me know how much it would hurt.”
“Perhaps she’s learned her lesson,” Ariel suggests, but his silver gaze is cool. “There is a first time for everything, I am told.”
Ty makes a low noise, not quite a growl. “So what you’re telling me is that something or someone is getting around Maddox’s scenting abilities, a sorceress’s wards that have held off hordes of manticores and werespiders without a hitch, and the oracle’s visions.” He looks around at each of us. “Not to mention all the extra security that’s supposedly in place to protect that entire piece of property, including by my own pack. How is that possible? Who has that kind of power?”
