She was bloodstained and battered and exhausted and had lost far too much. Anyone else would be far too careworn to perform leadership, but she was an inveterate performer, after all.

Orfeus shoved the fang earring into her ear, then twisted her fingers in Heal. The flesh fused around it. Part of her now.

She touched her hand to it, and said, “Brothers and sisters and kindred of the Wild.”

They could hear her, she knew.

“Tonight,” she continued softer, “we are having a feast. We are having a feast, and we are having a wake. The Leader is dead. Tomorrow, I will be your leader. Today I am your sister. Your brother. Your packmate. And today we mourn.”

She removed her hands, though the piercing still stung, as their messages flooded back to her: a chorus of voices chiming yes and what?, conferring with each other, like a great yelping and confusion of the Old World’s packs of hunting hounds. It did sting.

She would have to get used to that.

Epilogue

One Month Later

There were many types of business to be done as Leader of the Wild, not just the bloodier kind. Orfeus strode into the Owl’s infirmary, and Mordrai turned in a fluster and threw off a salute. She still hadn’t managed to keep anyone from saluting.

She saluted back, which was about her attitude to it. She couldn’t blame Mordrai for being intimidated. Orfeus dressed to be intimidating, bare knife at her hip, in a scarlet half-cape and a necklace of stylised silver teeth.

“Hey, Mordrai,” she said. She looked at the occupied bed and smiled. “Hey, neighbour.”

“Orfeus!” Linden said and waved. He smiled. “I can nearly see you.”

His eyes were no longer padded over with gauze, nor staring blankly into space: they looked properly in her direction, though the thick lenses half-hiding his face were like no glasses she’d ever seen before. “You’re missing an excellent outfit,” Orfeus said.

“I believe it,” Linden reassured her.

Splodge came out with a mraow, winding at her ankles. The Owl looked deeply pained. Orfeus bent down with the idea of picking the cat up and moving her away from the irritated medical expert, but Splodge was a happier cat now with her human back, and slipped out of her hands with a baleful glare before going to sit in a corner.

Mordrai sighed.

“It’s only until he’s healed up,” Orfeus said. She sat down on Linden’s bed and patted reassuringly at his ankles, looking up at the Owl. “You’ve conferred with the physicians in Eldergrove?”

“Yes,” Mordrai said promptly, sticking their hands in the pockets of their robe. “Our patient is making…more progress than the others.” They looked at Linden briefly, who smiled, like he didn’t at all mind being talked about, or didn’t notice; Orfeus knew better than that at least. “But they have hopes for most of them,” Mordrai continued.