Nat stared at the strange boy by his side. “But he bit me,” he croaked. His hands traveled to his throat, which was wrapped with a thick bandage. “I’ll be like him.”

Woody shook his head, trying to get through to his friend. “No, no, Nat, you won’t, I promise!”

On the third day, Nat opened his eyes again. There was a large white Wolven snoring at the bottom of his bed, and the angel was back. She pushed his sweaty hair off his face.

“No need to ask how you feel,” Iona said with a smile. “You look terrible.”

“I saw you in my dream,” he whispered. “We were on a boat, and you gave me a rosy drink.”

“Did I?” Iona asked, still smiling. “Are you sure it was me? No, don’t try to speak, you’ve suffered a bad injury to your throat; you nearly died.”

“Where …?”

“You’re at Meade Lodge,” said Iona brightly, “and so honored. Generations of de Gourneys have died in this bed!”

Nat closed his eyes. Whoo-hoo, yeah, I’m honored, he thought weakly.

“Woody hasn’t left your side,” said Iona, “not even to eat.”

Nat smiled for the first time.

“Woody told me you remembered Scale biting you?” asked Iona.

Nat gave an almost imperceptible nod, and groaned.

“Hush now. Lucas Scale is dead,” soothed Iona.

“And I have tainted blood,” whispered Nat. “I’ll be a werewolf, an outcast, like Vincent and Angelo.”

Iona shook her head. “Ophelia saved you; she saved you twice over.”

Nat squinted his eyes at Iona, trying to comprehend. “How?”

“When the werewolves turned on Gruber, Scale decided that if he was going to die, he was going to take you with him. He didn’t want to taint you, Nat, he wanted to kill you!”

“Then she should have let me die,” said Nat bitterly. “I survived a werewolf attack; everyone knows what that means.”

“Let me finish,” said Iona. “Ophelia shot him through his wormy heart, and then everything went crazy. The special services arrived: helicopters all over the grounds, personnel trying to decide whether to stay and face the music. Vincent found us, Professor Paxton and me, and we wiped the security camera footage. When we brought you back here, you’d already lost pints of blood.”

Nat groaned. “I can’t remember anything after his teeth …”

“Ophelia got you on a drip less than forty minutes after Scale had savaged you,” said Iona. “She transfused Woody’s Wolven blood into your veins. And, Nat, it worked! If it hadn’t, you would have changed within three hours. The purity of the Wolven’s blood sterilized the taint of Scale’s.”

Nat remained silent.

“Even if it hadn’t worked, you would never have become like Lucas Scale. He was, thankfully, one of a kind. A horrible kind!” Iona added reassuringly. “Don’t forget there are good, brave werewolves, too — like Angelo and Vincent.”