“Drop it. Trash, Grendel.”

“Trash?” Derek asked.

“That and sit are just about the only two commands he knows.” I sank an order into my voice. “Trash.”

Grendel spat out the raccoon and stared at me in disgust.

“It’s bad for you. Come on.”

He gave the raccoon one long forlorn look and followed us down the street.

We turned the corner. Ahead through the gap in the buildings, I could see the weak glint of the Mole Hole’s glass. I dismounted and tied the horse to a twisted metal rib of half-crumbled building. Derek joined me. We ducked into the scorched structure to the left, Grendel at our heels, climbed two sets of stairs, and stopped by a hole of a window.

The Mole Hole stretched in front of us, a colossal glass dish sunken into the ground. To the far right people stood around a fire built in a bronze brazier. Above them a thick steel beam protruded from the husk of a building, supporting a large metal cage that hung from it, secured by several chains. A lone figure slumped inside the cage, too big to be human. I pulled binoculars from my pack and focused. The creature in the cage hugged his knees, his arms and legs disproportionately long and pale. His flesh had a weak blue tint, the muscle tough and knobby across his back. The wind stirred a mane of pale blue hair. Saiman. In his natural form, too. That didn’t normally happen.

Saiman was a polymorph. He could reshape himself into a facsimile of any human body, any gender, any color, any age. Seeing his true form was exceedingly rare. I didn’t know if he was ashamed of it, but he went to great lengths to hide it.

I passed the binoculars to Derek. He eyed the cage. His raspy voice was a quiet whisper. “Oh, the irony.”

Given that Saiman had once caught him in a cage much like this one, I couldn’t disagree.

He passed the binoculars back. I looked at the people by the fire. Six. If I were Tremblay, I’d put a couple of shooters in the surrounding buildings. The magic was up, so they’d have to rely on bows, and bows had a limited range. There were only two buildings close enough, this one and the one across the Mole and to the left.

A faint scratching sound came from above us, metal sliding against the concrete. Derek looked up and held utterly still. A faint green fire rolled over his eyes. There was a wolf under the human skin, alert and cunning, and he was listening.

On the ground Grendel panted, oblivious.

A long minute passed. Another scrape. Either whoever it was on the floor above us couldn’t sit still or he was setting up a mount for his crossbow.