“Aside from you and the three packs, no.”

“How many people, besides us and you, are in the castle?”

“The Volkodavi have eighteen, the Italians have twenty, and Jarek Kral has twenty also.”

That was fifty-eight, and including us would make it an even seventy. “And you are confident your people can recall seventy different scent signatures?”

Hibla looked at Derek.

“Yes,” he told me. “Five hundred people come to the Keep during any week. I recognize every single scent.”

I knew that shapeshifter scent memory was good, but I had no idea it was that good. Thinking about remembering five hundred scent signatures made my head hurt.

“How can you be the Consort and not know this?” Hibla said, in the way someone would say, Of course the Earth is round; what are you, a moron?

Derek bared his teeth. Great. If he went for Hibla’s throat, I’d have a mess on my hands.

“In the U.S., shapeshifters don’t volunteer information about themselves to others,” I told her. “I learn as I go, and the subject of just how many scents you can recall never came up.”

Hibla checked Derek’s face. “We can recall thousands. Knowing this is important.” Her tone made it plain she thought I was a moron unfit for duty. First Desandra, now her. I was beginning to get tired of the constant you-are-not-a-shapeshifter song.

“Learning other things was a priority.”

“What other things?”

“How to effectively kill one of you with a six-inch knife. I’m a fast learner and I had a lot of practice. Turns out there is a way to jam the knife blade under the cervical vertebrae in such a way that your neck pops right out. Remind me some time, I’ll show you.”

Hibla blinked.

Derek laughed quietly.

“What about the head of the man I killed? Do you know his scent?”

“No,” Hibla admitted.

“So he wasn’t with any of the packs.”

“No.”

“And we don’t know how he got into the castle?”

Her upper lip wrinkled. “No.”

Strangers or not, the assaults had to be coming from one of the three packs. Someone had made a bargain with the devil and now these creatures were walking among us disguised.

We came to a heavy steel door barred by a metal rod as thick as my arm. It had to weigh at least fifty pounds. Hibla casually lifted it with one hand and pushed the door open. We emerged into the courtyard and I made a beeline for the cage.

The prisoner saw me. The pile of rags shifted and a dirt-smeared hand reached between the bars toward me.

“Please . . .”

Next to me Derek grimaced. A moment later I caught it too, the stench of stale urine and feces. Hugh was a fucking bastard. “Your magnanimous Lord Megobari lets him sit in his own excrement.”

There was a small pause before Hibla answered. “It can’t be helped.”