On that we agreed. “Any hint at all at what he might be holding? How big is it?”

“It’s . . . a blur. It feels like a weapon, Kate. It frightens me.”

Great. “Thank you. Will you tell me if you see anything else?”

“I will consider it.”

“Thanks again.”

I hung up. Curran glanced at me. Shapeshifter hearing surpassed human, and he would’ve heard the entire conversation. Whatever my father was cooking up, it would be bad for us. Catastrophically bad. I so didn’t need this right now.

The downstairs bathroom door opened and a thin man stepped out. His hair was pure white and his eyes, bright blue, were like the clear sky—not a single thought in sight. Oh no.

Christopher saw me. His eyes sparkled. He smiled as if given a precious gift and uttered one happy, quiet word. “Mistress!”

•   •   •

I SLUMPED AGAINST the wall. Christopher used to be brilliant. He also used to work for my father. We never got the whole story out of him, but something he had done displeased Roland, who punished him and then gave him to Hugh d’Ambray, who put him into a metal cage and was slowly starving him to death when I got him out. Christopher referred to himself as shattered, and that’s exactly what he was. His mind floated about, broken into a thousand shards, and you never knew which particular shard was in control. Sometimes he was so smart, it hurt; at others, he was childlike; and then occasionally he did things like climbing to the top of one of the Keep’s towers and trying to take flight. He was convinced he used to know how to fly and that he still could, if only he remembered. Usually it took me or Barabas to talk him down.

We had left Christopher behind at the Keep. It was the safest place for him. He knew how to make panacea, a vital medicine the shapeshifters desperately needed to keep from going loup, and the Pack would guard him and see to his every need. He couldn’t really be left unsupervised.

I turned to Julie. She shrugged. “He was sitting on our doorstep when Derek dropped me off.”

“Mistress,” Christopher said happily.

Oh boy. “Hi, Christopher.” I made my voice as gentle as I could. “How did you get here?”

“I walked.”

Walked. The Keep was almost two hours away by vehicle. How in the world did he even find us?

Christopher kept smiling, his alpine lake eyes blissfully empty.

“Why don’t you stay for dinner?” I told him.

•   •   •