From my butt, I looked at the remaining two people. Both men. One was whip thin, his body all angles and points, but other than that, I could barely see his features given the way his long dark hair fell forward, hiding his eyes . . .

“Hey, you must be related to Robert!” I did push to my feet then, so I could get a better look at him. He slowly raised his chin until he was looking down his nose at me. His face was as angular as the rest of him. He wore black skinny jeans and a black T-shirt which made him seem thinner than he probably was.

“Who. Is. Robert?” His thick French accent was even snobbier than the whole look-down-his-nose move.

I looked at Eammon and then Corb for help, but they both shook their heads. Corb, of course, added a set of crossed arms that said it all. He was not helping me get through this.

“Robert,” I repeated the name, “the skeleton you left near the gate. He’s built similarly to you, but . . . well, he’s dead, so there is that.” I wiped a hand across my face. Slick, I was totally slick with sweat and it wasn’t just from the exertion.

French dude shook his head. “There is no one named Robert here; skeletons do not have names. They are dead.”

Eammon thumbed at him. “He’s a necro, so he has a bit of affinity with the dead.”

Before I could respond, a scrabbling sound turned my head and the world seemed to go into slow motion as the big bad wolf burst onto the top of the hill, snarling, blood dripping from where his ear had been torn off by good old Robert.

The animal’s huge head swung my way, amber eyes narrowed, and I found myself staring into the teeth of the thing. The men did nothing as the wolf advanced on me.

I didn’t understand. I’d thought their test was over. But I didn’t need to understand. I just needed to make it out of this alive.

“Bad dog!” I swung a right hook, not to punch the wolf in the nose, but to jam my fingers into the nostrils. The soft flesh was cold and wet, just like it would be with a dog, and I clenched my hand into a fist around it.

The wolf cried out, yelping, and fell back, which yanked me with him right to the edge of the mountain top we were on. I had to get control of this now, or we were both going over the lip.

“Bad dog!” I yelled at the wolf again. “Sit!”

Insanity. This. Was. Insanity.

Gran, you did not prep me for this!

Crazier yet, because the wolf sat. Whimpering. I let go immediately and stared it right in the eye. “Down.”