And the no-longer-a-boy-boy-king strode back to the palace, leaving the fish-keep shaking his head, leaving Governor-Advisor with worm tail gaping.

XX

A DELICATE ANIMAL

The wolf lay beneath the scrub. His leg was not his leg: Smelling and licking, he sensed it was not. His fur was all salt-tasting. All blood-sticky. Too hot. The leg did not move as it should. He was driven to lick and lick and lick—he could do nothing but. Licking, he felt he would find the leg that was his; he would nose it out, uncover it.

Wide light gave way to wind-carried sounds. He flicked his ears. Nose in the air, he could sense a great woolly mass moving—a herd, smelling of grass and earthy oiliness, droppings and hoof-dented soil.

Leaf-scented shadows swayed over him. He tried to shrink into their coolness. Tongue dry, he licked his salty fur, ears quivering at the oily thuddy bleating—the woolly odorous herd moving toward him. But beneath their thudding and bleating was another. Another animal.

He lifted his head. He sniffed. What animal?

The strange animal again. Two-legged. All nervous smell and trembling skin.

The strange animal—quiet, furless, delicate—swung its head on its delicate neck. Soundless, trembling, it eyed the field. Fear smelled on its skin.

For a moment, the fear smelled like hunger, and he wanted to gnaw it, rip it, chew it, eat it, all the bones and soft furless flesh, but something else twisted beneath his skin. It was not hunger. It was the feeling of den, the feeling of roots and dirt and warmth, the squirming of pups. He sensed the animal as part of the den, part of the wriggling warmth he had known.

The feeling of den. The feeling of hunger.

His leg was hot, all sticky with pain.

He whimpered.

His leg was not a leg.

XXI

AH, THERE YOU ARE

Rae had not wanted to lead the sheep out to the pastures, but she did not know what she could say when Ness asked. “Just bring them up the hill to the ungrazed land, Rae. Mop has a cart to mend, and I’m going to be picking fleece all afternoon.”

“But…” Rae, voice trembling, had hesitated. The wolf, she’d wanted to say. The wolves. She did not want to go into the hills.

How could she admit this?

“You’re old enough now.” Ness had ushered her toward the door. “Lead them out. Mop trusts you to care for the flock on your own.”

So Rae, the word wolf still lodged in her throat, brought the sheep up the hill. With no rain to break the spell, the day was as hot and still as it had been yesterday. Standing in the center of the meadow, she clutched Mop’s staff—nearly twice as tall as she—and scanned the edges of the woods for creeping shadows. Though the sheep grazed peacefully, she could not let go of her disquiet, and the longer she stood, the more unnerved she became.

Something felt wrong.