Maddie’s body shuddered. Her limbs twisted. The distortion in her body shrank, but the signs of animal remained. My heart sank. It didn’t work.

“She’s down to two,” Doolittle said.

The shift coefficient, the measure of how much a body had shifted from one form to the other. “What does that mean?”

“It’s progress,” he said. “If we had more of the panacea, I would be optimistic.”

But we didn’t. Tony hadn’t just emptied the bag, he had cut it and rubbed the inside of the plastic on the meat and then scraped it clean with the back of the knife. Maddie was still going loup. We had to get more panacea. We had to save her.

“You can’t kill her!” Julie’s voice shot into high pitch. “You can’t!”

“How long can you keep the child under?” Curran asked.

“How long is necessary?” Doolittle asked.

“Three months,” Curran said.

Doolittle frowned. “You’re asking me to induce a coma.”

“Can you do it?”

“Yes,” Doolittle said. “The alternative is termination.”

Curran’s voice was clipped. “Effective immediately, all loupism-related terminations of children are suspended. Sedate them instead.” He turned and walked out.

I paused for half a second to tell Julie that it would be okay and chased after him.

The hallway was empty. The Beast Lord was gone.

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 2

I climbed the Stairs of Doom to the top floor. I had wanted to chase Curran down, but Julie was still freaked-out and Meredith ping-ponged from hugging one daughter to crying over another. She didn’t want us to induce a coma. She wanted more panacea and couldn’t understand that there was none to be had. It took the three of us—Doolittle, Julie, and me—over two hours to convince her that Maddie needed to be sedated. By the time I finally left the medical ward, Curran was long gone. The guards at the entrance saw him walk out, but nobody knew where he went.

I reached the guard station at the entrance to our floor. Living in the Keep was like trying to find privacy in a glass bowl, and the two top floors of the main tower were my refuge. Nobody entered here unless the Beast Lord’s personal guard vetted them, and they weren’t charitable when approving visitors.

Sitting in a dark room watching a child suffer while her mother’s soul died bit by bit was more than I could handle. I needed to do something. I had to vent or I would explode.

I nodded at the guards and went down the hallway to a long glass wall that separated our private gym. I took off my shoes and stepped inside. Weights waited for me, some free, some attached to machines. Several heavy punching bags hung from chains in the corner, next to a speed bag. Swords, axes, and spears rested in the hooks on the wall.