“Why does he want to see me?” The wizard’s eyes were hidden in the shadows. For a moment she felt a shiver of fear. Around Ward and the other Hurogs, Oreg went out of his way to appear boyish—but she was too skilled a hunter to believe his camouflage.

“I can’t tell you,” she said. “But you are free to refuse what he asks. Just don’t play games with him.”

“Play games?” He smiled at her, showing his teeth. “Why would I do something like that.”

No, she thought wryly, she was not imagining the menace he projected. He wanted her to be afraid. “I care for him and I don’t want to lose friends. Rosem doesn’t have much of a sense of humor. If he believes you’ll betray us, he’ll try to do something about it.”

“You think I’d deliberately mislead him?” His hand came out and touched the rapid pulse on her neck.

“Yes.” The touch made her lose her temper. “I think you’d enjoy it. You may have everyone else fooled, but I know what you are.”

“You do,” he agreed.

She waved her hand in dismissal. “Not the dragon part. Ward treats you as if he needs to protect you—just like he treats everyone else. Stala thinks you a bumbling wizard, powerful but shy. And Tosten . . .” She considered a moment. “Tosten’s worried you’re going to hurt Ward.”

He’d been watching her complacently until her last statement. “Hurt Ward?”

She nodded. “He knows that Ward sees you as one of his strays—like me, that young girl with the birthmark across her face, and the little boy with the crippled foot whose father is in the Blue Guard. But he thinks that means that Ward doesn’t know what you are, what you’re capable of doing.”

“I’d never hurt Ward,” Oreg said, his voice low.

“I know that,” she said. “Tosten does, too now, I think. No one could miss how you felt about Ward when you came to tell us you’d lost him.”

Oreg took several strides away from her. After a moment he came back, his face and body relaxed once more.

“So you know me better than anyone?” The threat was back in his voice.

She raised her chin and smiled coldly at him. “You are a predator—like me. I think you would give your life for those at Hurog—but you care little or nothing for anyone else.” She could feel the menace gathering around her. A chill wind cut through the trees, rustling the old leaves that waited for spring budding to fall. “It worries me to take you to Rosem,” she said. “You are too careless with other people. But I want what he wants enough to risk exposing him.”