in the corner. I’d gotten close enough to it to smell the red copper of blood, and the image of a

brown Jersey cow popped up big as life inside my head, the touch throbbing. I’d retreated to the

other side of the room in a hurry. At least he was being fed. I would have a crazy well-fed werwulf

to contend with instead of a crazy hungry one.

You take what you can get, I suppose.

I plopped the pillow down, fluffed it up, then stood and stared at the sleeping bag. It smelled like

Graves. Healthy teenage boy, his deodorant, and the cold moonlight tang of loup-garou.

I eased myself down cautiously, my knees complaining when they hit cold concrete. My wrapped

wrist twinged, too. I peeked under the shelf.

There was a faint orange gleam of eyes in the deeper shadow. His breathing hadn’t changed, but he

was awake. Every inhale ended on a slight bubbling sound through his ruined mouth.

“I’m sorry about shooting you.” The words surprised me. Even more than that, I was surprised to

find out I really was sorry. Even if Benjamin was right and the only thing keeping him from doing

what Sergej wanted and killing me was a faceful of silver grain, I still felt bad about shooting him.

“It must hurt, huh?”

The shadow didn’t move, but I could tell he was paying attention by the way the silence in the room

changed. Ordinary people can hear that, too—what happens when someone is suddenly paying attention.

“Go figure.” The cold of the floor grabbed the bruises on my legs with bony fingers. “This is about

the only place I feel safe. And you could bite my head off without even thinking about it. Do I smell

weird to you, too? I guess I must.”

No answer. Just the soft burble of his breath. The tiny glimmers of his eyes winked out, and he settled farther back, against the wall.

I didn’t zip the sleeping bag up, but I did tuck it all around me. The metal was hard and uncomfortable, but no worse than a motel-room floor. I just couldn’t get easy, especially with the bruises and

muscle aches playing pinball all through me. Every time I shifted my weight the bag’s zipper would

rub a little bit against the metal bed, or a bruise would set up a yell of pain, or some damn thing. But

I was exhausted, and pretty soon I started to feel drowsy.

I woke with a start, hearing the deathly stillness of everyone in the Schola gone to their early-morning rest. It took me a few sleepy seconds to realize it was before Ash usually began his regular 3:00

a.m. yowling, and he wasn’t making a sound. Instead, I blinked fuzzily a few times, and in the faint