“Here!” a voice called. “Over here!”
A light ball sparked thirty feet away, illuminating Kristof’s face. He gestured wildly, and we ran toward him. As we drew close, the wall shimmered. The exit—not a hole but a portal. He pushed us through. We tumbled again, falling into a heap in the darkness.
“They return,” a voice hissed.
“How do they return?”
“They have. No!”
The oni started to shriek. Claws scraped at me. Then Kristof murmured, “Hold on,” and he teleported us out.
We landed on our asses in the middle of a jungle, surrounded by ferns the size of trees. Overhead, a tiny prehistoric primate peered down at us, then raced off, chattering.
Kristof looked around, frowning. “Not quite what I was aiming for.”
I laughed and threw my hands around his neck. “It never is.”
As I hugged him, I felt something like a breastplate under his suit jacket. When I backed up to take a look, he flipped open a button and pulled out a faintly glowing book.
“I believe you wanted this,” he said.
I stared down at it. “How …?”
He pushed the book into my hands. “Consider it my apology, for a somewhat misguided attempt to cure your boredom.”
“Oh, you cured it all right.”
I took the book and flipped through it. It was indeed a grimoire, filled with spells I’d never seen before. I turned to Trsiel.
“Is this …?”
“Seems to be.” He looked at Kristof. “Thank you for the rescue.”
“But how?” I said, waving the book.
“Trsiel came to warn me that you’d uncovered my plot and might be annoyed with me.”
“When?” I answered my own question. “Ah, while you were ‘cleaning up’ your books.”
Trsiel nodded.
Kristof continued. “I was in session, so he left a message. When I got it, I realized that, in following my fake adventure, you’d stumbled into a real one. So I went after you.”
I didn’t ask how he’d found us. Ask Kris to teleport us to the beach and we’d invariably end up in the desert. His sense of direction is hopeless … with one exception. Ask him to find me, and he can do it with the precision of a bloodhound.
“I arrived as you were fighting the hell-beast. You conquered it before I could be of any assistance, so while every creature in that place was tracking you two, I found the book.”
“And they didn’t notice you stealing it?”
A lift of his brows. “Of course not. I was careful. And I replaced it with a spell that emitted a similar light long enough for us to escape.” He paused. “So, am I forgiven?”
“You brought me a secret spell book,” I said. “You are absolutely forgiven.”
Trsiel cleared his throat. “That grimoire …”
I sighed. “It may be a sacred text, which you must return to the Fates.”
“No, I think you can,” he said. “I have research to do. Just make sure you return it in a reasonably timely fashion.”
I grinned. “Thank you.”
We said our goodbyes, and Trsiel teleported back to the Great Library. I looked around. In the distance, something roared. Something very large.
“Where are we, anyway?” I asked.
“I have no idea. But it does seem interesting.”
He pulled back a frond. The little simian from earlier was there, spying on us. Seeing Kristof, it raced off again.
“While I’m very tempted to explore,” he said, “you do have that book on a limited loan.”
“Mmm …” I looked around. “I think we can do both. A little exploring. A little spell-casting.” I paused. “Unless you need to get back to court.”
“I wrangled a twenty-four-hour recess to pursue something very important.” He gestured to the jungle and then at the book. “Those look important.” He leaned over to kiss me. “That could be important, too.”
“All right, then. Twenty-four hours alone together, in a prehistoric jungle, with a secret spell book. I do believe my boredom has officially been cured.”
“Good. So where shall we begin?”
The creature roared again.
“I want to know what that is,” I said.
He smiled. “Of course,” he said, and off we went.
THE PUPPY PLAN
Curiosity may have killed the cat, but it causes serious problems for werewolves, too. Logan had been wandering the forest behind Stonehaven, goofing off, tramping through the newly fallen snow. At nine, he was a little old for playing like that. Or he considered himself too old for it. But his twin sister, Kate, had gone into the city with their parents to buy Christmas gifts, which meant there was no one to see him. And it was new snow. So he wandered about, breaking fresh paths, startling mice, and maybe even scooping up a few, like he and Kate used to do when they were kids. Little kids, that is.
As he neared the edge of the property, he noticed the sun just starting to drop over the open road. Time to head back. He was supposed to be in before dark, and while there was at least an hour left, he hated even skirting the edges of irresponsibility.
It was then, as he turned, that he caught the scent. He stopped in his tracks, lifted his nose, and inhaled.
It smelled like a dog, which was weird. With the Pack roaming these woods, other canines steered clear. Once, he and Kate had spotted a fox ambling across the road, and when it caught their scent, it practically went into spasms before it tore back to its own side.
This definitely smelled like dog, though. That made Logan curious. Okay, most things made Logan curious. He liked learning and discovering. He also liked testing boundaries, though not in the same way his sister did. Kate pushed the ones that would get her into trouble. With Logan, boundaries were about knowledge and exploration. Lately, he’d been testing how close he could get to domestic animals before he startled them.
He walked toward the scent, but it remained faint. Then it was gone. He looked around. He saw the road, and trees and snow. Lots of snow. When he backed up, the smell wafted by on the breeze.
Had a dog passed this way earlier, its tracks now covered in snow?
No. His gut told him that whatever caused this smell was still here, and he paused, analyzing that. Gut feelings were for Kate; Logan preferred fact. He decided that it was the strength of the scent. As faint as it was, it was more than the detritus shed by a passing dog.
That still didn’t answer the question of where the dog could possibly be, when all he saw was snow. The forest started ten feet back from the road, the edge too sparse to hide anything bigger than a rabbit.
Maybe the dog wasn’t bigger than a rabbit. Like the one they saw when Uncle Nick took them to visit Vanessa, and they’d been out walking on a busy street and passed a woman with a tiny dog in her purse. The dog had smelled werewolf, freaked, escaped, and ran into traffic, followed by Kate, who’d nearly gotten hit catching it. Uncle Nick had decided it was a story their parents really didn’t need to hear. Logan agreed. He’d also pointed out to Kate that, while rescuing the dog had been a fine impulse, she’d nearly given the tiny beast a heart attack when she scooped it up, which would have rather undone the point of saving it.
It could be a small dog, then, cowering behind a tree, waiting for Logan to pass. Which meant he should just move along. Except that, well … curiosity. He had to see if his theory was correct.
As he started through the ditch, snow billowed over the top of his boots. He should have worn snow pants, but this winter he’d declared he was too old for them. The price for maturity, apparently, was wet jeans and snow sliding down the insides of his boots.