I dropped to my knees and put a hand on Sam’s shoulder because the pain in Charles’s voice found its echo in mine.

“I doubt he’ll survive for very long that way—do you hear me, wolf?”

Sam’s upper lip curled, showing teeth.

“He does,” I said.

“He’ll grow tired and more hungry than usual. He’ll slowly lose the chains that Samuel forged to control him, but all that will be left is a ravenous beast. A new wolf, a whole wolf in charge, kills easily and often, but usually there is a reason for it, even if that reason is that he doesn’t like the way his victim smelled. What will be left of Samuel will kill and destroy until he drops dead.”

“How do you know?” Charles was only a couple of centuries old. He hadn’t ever lived in a place outside of the Marrok’s control, and the Marrok killed the wolves who lost control. But he sounded absolutely certain.

“Let’s say that, like you, I once had a friend I wished to help, and I kept him out of sight of my father in a place he could do no harm. It would have been kinder to kill him from the first.”

My fingers sank into Sam’s fur.

“How long do we have?”

“My friend was old, but not as old as Samuel. He lost his humanity over a few days, became sick and lethargic toward the end of that. I thought he was just fading—but he went into a frenzy.” He stopped speaking for a moment. “Then just dropped dead. Less than a week. I have no idea how long Samuel will last.”

“If he’d lost it when the wolf took over?” I asked. “Like the new wolves do? He’d have been better off?” I’d been so happy that he’d been different.

“Then he’d have lived until our father caught up with him—but you would have died along with the people in the hospital where you found him. This is better, Mercedes. But do not trust him, too much.”

“Do you have any suggestions how I can help him?”

“The first is to convince the wolf to allow Samuel back in the driver’s seat, if only for a short period of time.”

“He wants to survive,” I told them both. “That’s why he took over from Samuel in the first place. If that means letting Samuel back in, he’ll do it.” I sounded much more convinced of that than I felt, but Sam sighed and gave me a tired, faint whine.

“And then you have to convince Samuel that he wants to survive.”

“And if I can’t? If the wolf lets Samuel out, and he still wants to kill himself?”

“Then the wolf will have to fight for control again—or my brother dies.” Charles let out a breath of air. “All things die, Mercedes. Some just take longer than others.”

Chapter 7

I TOOK SAM WITH ME TO THE BOOKSTORE THAT NIGHT, which was inconvenient.

I suppose we both could have stayed home, but I wanted in to look at Phin’s bookstore. The woman had been searching for something; maybe I could figure out what it had been. Maybe I’d find Phin there, happy and healthy. Maybe I wouldn’t sit home all night, worrying about things I couldn’t change.

I couldn’t leave Sam by himself, not after my little talk with Charles. But he wasn’t the best partner to bring with me to break into the store.

People would overlook a woman wandering around the Uptown mall in Richland even after most of the stores were closed. It wasn’t that late, a little after nine at night. The crime rate is relatively low in Richland—and most of what crime there is tends to be committed by gang members or teenagers. Sam . . .

I imagined the hypothetical conversation as I drove down the interstate.

Officer: “Tell me, did you see anything unusual last night?”

Random witness: “There was this big white dog. Huge. And really white, stood out in the darkness like a beacon.”

Yep. Sam made matters more difficult. So I would just act like I knew what I was doing and hope no one ever called the police to investigate.

“I don’t know what I hope to discover in the bookstore,” I said. “There is hardly going to be a note telling me where Phin is, right? Still, it’s a start. If we don’t find anything, maybe we’ll go break into his apartment. It’s better than sitting around at home, right?”

And the pack was meeting at Adam’s house that night. I knew why he’d called the meeting. He wanted to find out who’d been playing games with me. He’d called me to tell me what he was doing—and asked me to stay away because he hadn’t had a chance to show me how to defend myself from pack members crawling around in my head.

I should have gone over anyway, confronted my enemies. But it was different when all your enemies could do was kill you.

“I don’t want to stay home knowing how much of a coward I am,” I told Sam. “I should have gone to Adam’s when I saw them all arrive.”

He grunted.

“But the thought of them being able to make me do something I would never . . .”

I was pretty sure that it hadn’t just been lack of opportunity that kept Adam from teaching me how to protect myself. He’d said that if he’d known what was happening at the time when whoever it was started influencing me, he could have discovered their identity. I think he planned on trying to force a confession tonight—and if he couldn’t, he would wait until they tried it again. If that was his motivation, I approved in spirit, but at the same time, I really didn’t want to wait around until someone tried to make me do their bidding again.

I parked in the corner of the Uptown parking lot where an all-night restaurant was located. There weren’t a lot of cars there but enough that the Rabbit didn’t stand out.

I opened Sam’s door and he sniffed the air carefully.

“Are you scenting for the fae woman who was here today?” I asked.

He didn’t give me any kind of answer, just shook himself and looked at me expectantly—as if he really were the dog we were pretending he was. Was he slower? Did his tail droop more than usual? Or was I letting Charles’s words make me paranoid?

I glanced at him and was pretty sure it was both. Just because you’re paranoid doesn’t mean you aren’t right. He wasn’t quite as responsive, either, as if it took him a moment to translate words into meanings.

I didn’t notice anyone who seemed to be watching us as we crossed the parking lot—but we were out where people could see us. All I could do was act as if I weren’t breaking into the shop. It took me two full minutes to crack the lock on the door of the bookstore, which was about one and a half minutes longer than I was comfortable standing there with my back to the parking lot and the busy street beyond. I was hopeful that someone from the street couldn’t tell that I was playing with my lockpicks instead of fumbling with a stiff lock. There was a bar that was still open about three stores over, but no one had come or gone while I struggled. Sheer good luck, something I couldn’t always count on. I was going to have to get some practice in if I kept having to break into buildings.

The door handle turned, and I started to move on to the dead bolt, when I realized that the door had popped open when I’d unlocked the handle. Someone hadn’t engaged the dead bolt.

I held the door for Sam, then slipped inside myself. He couldn’t shut the door—and if there was something unfriendly in the store, he was better able to deal with it.

I turned the dead bolt and looked around. My eyesight is good in the dark, so we didn’t need to attract even more attention by turning on the light. It was darker in the store than it was outside and the windows were already tinted, so it would be hard for anyone looking to see anything but the reflection of the outside lights.

At first I observed a neat and tidy store that smelled of incense and old books. Paper holds the memory of any strong scent, so in a used bookstore, it wasn’t uncommon to get little trickles of food, tobacco, and perfume. I took a deep breath to see if I could find anything that stood out.