I pointed to the three-story brick building across the street. “That’s Mason-Abbot Hall, which puts us on the northeast corner of campus, about ten miles from Lansing.” I turned back to the delivery driver. “How’d you like to make a bigger tip?”

“If traffic doesn’t pick up soon, I’m going to fly the rest of the way,” I muttered.

“You can do that?” Our impromptu driver’s name was Callie, a second-year communications major who had agreed to drive us into Lansing only after getting a selfie with Lena, and another with Smudge.

“I can. The FAA gets cranky about it, though.”

Callie swerved into another lane, then slammed the brakes. “Shit. Sorry. I knew they’d closed 496, but it looks like they’ve blocked off Saginaw, too. I’ll get you as close as I can. Is it true this was a terrorist attack?”

“We don’t know yet,” said Nidhi.

Lena was studying her hands. “I should get rid of these,” she said, touching the buds on her knuckles. “It’s probably safer for everyone if I pass for human.”

I wanted to argue, to tell her to be herself. I looked at Nidhi and saw the same conflict in her eyes. If the attackers weren’t human, advertising Lena’s nature could make her the target of angry crowds or overzealous law enforcement. Neither of us spoke as the green buds slowly absorbed back into Lena’s skin.

Callie broke the silence. “There was a campus march for Marcus Visser last week. A real werewolf came to speak. It was pretty intense. The cops showed up at the end. Six people got pepper sprayed.” She turned north and snuck a block closer before hitting another line of stalled traffic. “I think this is as close as I can get you.”

“It’s close enough.” I handed her another forty bucks and climbed out of the car. I could see the capitol dome a short distance away, past bumper-to-bumper traffic. “Thank you.”

She rolled down her window. “Hey, that libriomancy stuff. Can anyone learn it? I was thinking of changing majors.”

“Sorry. It doesn’t work that way.”

The noise hit hard: horns blaring uselessly in the streets, sirens wailing, shouts and chants in the distance. I heard dogs barking as well, but I couldn’t tell if they were pets howling at the noise or police dogs trying to track the perpetrators.

Then there were the people making their way toward the capitol. Many had similar expressions of shock, confusion, and grief. Others had skipped past grief to rage. Even if I hadn’t known where I was going, the flow would have carried us to the site of the attack.