Until he saw me, when his expression shuttered and his body tightened.
“Lady Victoria.” He peered toward the residence trees, his feet shifting on the ground as if he wished he could skirt around me and bolt in that direction.
“I’m looking into the shifting sickness. Do you know any of the affected well enough to comment?”
His shoulders stiffened, but he nodded. “Me.”
“Ah, I’m sorry.” I couldn’t imagine being stripped of my magic. It must feel almost like the same thing. “Can you describe what happens when you try to shift?”
He looked away, toward the forest. “It’s like reaching for something that’s always been there and finding nothing. Like losing a limb, but worse, because the limb was part of your soul.” His voice roughened. “My wolf is still there. I can feel him. But I can’t reach him.”
Pain leached into his words. This wasn’t just a medical curiosity. These were people losing a fundamental part of themselves.
I kept my voice level. “Where were you when the symptoms first appeared and when did it happen?”
“Three months ago. I was hunting in the northern section, near the creek tributaries.” He frowned. “I never thought about it before, but a few of the others mentioned it starting when they were in the same area.”
My pen scratched faster across the page.
Acorn, who’d scooted into the underbrush, popped up onto a fallen log.The little creatures who cannot shift, do they also feel the rift? If magic’s touch has gone astray, do forest friends also pay?
“Have you noticed any changes in the non-shifter animal populations near the creek?” I asked.
Tristen’s eyes widened. “That’s actually a good question. I don’t believe so, but I’ll ask around.”
I added this detail to my notes and nodded toward Acorn.Good thinking.
His tail bristled with pride.
“Thank you for your time,” I said to Tristen.
He hesitated, easing his weight from one foot to the other. “The alpha won’t like you poking into this.”
“Noted.”
While he aimed for the kitchens, I headed back toward the home tree, my mind already organizing the information into patterns and possibilities.
Back in the office, I spread my notes across a free area of the table and began dictating my preliminary findings to the hovering pen.
The pen flew across a fresh page, recording everything in neat script.
This was a puzzle. A good one. The kind that made my brain light up with possibilities.
Acorn had curled up in his basket on the windowsill, but poked his head over the rim.Nuts and kingdoms, warm and deep, where squirrels go to sleep. Long winter’s night in borrowed den, until the spring returns again.
I returned to the dusty desk, sitting and spinning around to face the bookshelf. After a moment, I picked up the small wooden wolf.
Had Feral made this when he was a boy?
I turned it over in my hands, examining the way the legs had been shaped, the way the tail curved.
Then I set it back carefully and got up.
I returned to my equipment, checking the crystallization progress and adjusting temperature controls with a spell. The work absorbed me the way it always did, and everything else faded to background noise.
I didn’t know how much time had passed when I heard the outer door open in the sitting area.
I registered it distantly but didn’t stop working, assuming it was a servant delivering something.
