The only place the bite’s legal is Russia, for obvious reasons; the Russian secret service aren’t nicknamed the Silent Wolves for nothing. Bitten werewolves, both male and female, are infertile (a note said to see ‘Changed by Ritual’ for more on werewolf fertility levels). Werewolves prefer to live in dense forested areas. Aren’t sensitive to silver, as a lot of fiction states, but are allergic to wolfsbane, mistletoe and ergot, particularly when presented in tincture. They generally live a slightly longer than normal human lifespan, have high resistance to most diseases, but are as vulnerable to death or injury as any other in their human or animal forms. In their beast form (half and half) they can only be killed by removal of head or heart.

‘Good to know,’ I murmured, hoping if I did come across the Emperor’s wolves they wouldn’t be in their beast form, and made a note to get Tavish’s werewolf repellent out of the fridge.

I clicked on ‘Changed by Ritual’. It took me to the secure section of the archives; if I wanted to read it I needed a password. Clicking on the ‘Born’ link took me to the same protected page.

Curious, I texted Tavish and Katie on the off chance that one of them might reply, despite the late hour. Unsurprisingly, given Tavish’s earlier abrupt end to our phone call, it was Katie; only her password didn’t work. Instead, I got a security warning. I scowled at it, sent another text to Tavish, then after wasting fifteen minutes on Facebook’s Magikville, during which I managed to lose half my spellcaster points and ended up trading a golden goose for a dud magic frog. I gave up on my werewolf research, sealed my full blood bag and headed for the fridge.

As I reached for the door, my phone rang. The number on the screen was Sanguine Lifestyles; the vamp’s 24/7 ‘do anything’ service.

My heart thudded against my ribs.

‘Ms Taylor,’ a woman’s efficient-sounding voice said, ‘I have a message for you from Mr Malik al-Khan. He would like you to meet him at the Blue Heart, at midnight tomorrow. Can I tell him the time and date will be suitable for you?’

Tavish wanted me to stay away from Malik.

Part of me thought Tavish was right and really, with him on the Emperor’s case, I didn’t need to ‘date’ Malik for any more info. Only as I’d decided before, that wasn’t the only reason I needed to see him . . .

But the fae’s fertility had to be sorted; it had to take priority.

‘Ms Taylor?’ the woman’s voice prompted.

I should say no. I opened my mouth, but instead the words that came out were, ‘Thank you. That time and date will be suitable.’

She rang off and guilt twisted inside me as I opened the fridge. ‘The “date” with Malik isn’t till midnight tomorrow,’ I told the two dead mackerel, sliding the bag of blood in to join the one already there on the shelf below. ‘That gives me plenty of time to see what Tavish might or might not find out, so if need be, I can always call it off. All it would take is a phone call.’ The two mackerel eyed me balefully.

I sighed and reached past the fish to pick up a small black tub: Tavish’s werewolf repellent.

I opened it, took a wary sniff— the stuff ripped up my nose like a six-week-old corpse, and as it hit the back of my throat a coughing fit seized me. A couple of minutes later I managed to slam the lid back on, and swipe the tears from my eyes. Tavish wasn’t kidding when he said it didn’t smell so good. ‘I’d rather wear you two as earrings,’ I muttered, plonking the tub back next to the dead fish and closing the fridge with a shudder.

Crap. Katie was going to hate it, if the smell didn’t kill her first.

And there was no way I could wear it and work. Only I’d be stupid not to.

Damn it. If only I knew for sure she’d seen a werewolf on Primrose Hill. But to do that I’d need to look into Katie’s memory, which was a vamp power I didn’t have. And no way was I going to let any vamp near Katie, not after last time. But maybe Malik could dredge something up from my memory. I had seen that shadow after all—

An idea hit me. There was a way I could interrogate my own memory, and not only about the shadow, but about the peeping tom I’d seen looking in the nasty gnome’s window shortly before.

Sylvia had done a deal with a local witch company for groceries, and the fridge was set up to magically replenish itself as needed. It only allowed individual things through the Ward at any one time (which was how Tavish had sent me the icky werewolf-repellent), so was safe. But the witch company didn’t just deliver groceries; they did spells too. And they worked round the clock.

I texted a request for what I wanted, and got an almost instant, positive reply: ‘In stock and sent.’ Gotta love an efficient company.

I checked the fridge. On the top shelf, next to the black tub with its repellent, was a small box. The box had a cartoon picture of a smiling, sleeping woman with her head on a pillow of clouds. Printed on the box were the words: ‘Morpheus Memory Aid’. It was an off-the-shelf hypnopædia spell beloved by panicked students everywhere. I double-checked the blurb on the back of the box:

Named for Morpheus, the Greek God of Dreams, the Morpheus Memory Aid sleep-teaching spell is a worldwide favourite of students, lecturers, actors, singers, travellers, public speakers and politicians. Retain relevant facts with overnight ease. Learn a new language while you sleep. Mesmerise—

Hm, not quite what I remembered (no pun intended). I opened the box to find a tiny blue glass bottle, a matching blue sleep mask, and the instructions:

Drink before sleep while concentrating on the information you need to recall. The potion’s patented magics will work alongside your dreaming subconscious to completely focus on the required subject matter, then consolidate and commit every detail (including those normally discarded by our conscious self) in the hippocampus – the part of the brain concerned with memory.

Warning: Contains alcohol. Do not drive or use machinery immediately after use. Please drink responsibly. No liability will be admitted for failure of dreamer to achieve expected grade in any test or examination. Do not use if aware of any previous adverse reactions to any of the ingredients (listed below), to previous use of Morpheus Memory Aid or any similar magics (nightmares, night terrors, loss of short-term memory), or if suffering from any of the ailments (listed below) which are known to be contraindicated. Disclaimer: Evidence recalled under the influence of Morpheus Memory Aid is not admissible in a human court of law.

‘Ah hah!’ I told the glazed-eyed fish as I read the last sentence. ‘That’s what I thought it said. Now let’s see if it works.’

Which, since it was aimed at humans and I’m sidhe, was debatable. Still, only one way to find out, and hopefully without suffering any of its ‘adverse reactions’. I had more than enough bad dream material with Emperors, werewolves, monstrous crawling-out-of-the abyss cats, stinging Jellyfish spells or my usual nightmare whenever I thought about the Autarch too much – that my psychotic, sadistic betrothed was about to turn up to claim me for his long-lost bride.

I glugged the potion, which tasted like chemical strawberries with a kick, pulled on the sleep mask and flopped into bed.

My dreaming self stood in the gnome’s creepsville room with its high ceiling, fungi-covered furniture and shelved walls stacked with plastic boxes and glass tanks full of more staring eyes and various body parts, some hideously mutilated, than I recalled from my actual visit. Instead of the room being dimly lit, now it was as if a half-a-dozen floodlights illuminated it. My dream vision was sharp enough to see every individual hair on the ginger tom cat crouching on the desk, and I realised that its fur wasn’t just shades of orange, but held whites and cream too.