By Charles’s reckoning they were a little over forty miles away as the crow flies. If this area held true to other mountains he’d been over around here, their actual path might be sixty miles or more. If they had been hiking on foot, it would have taken them a couple of days, but on four feet—Anna had it about right.

“No,” he said. “We’ll make camp here today and leave it up while we head in.” He looked into the woods and lowered his lids, letting his senses roam out around them. “I don’t think arriving at Wild Sign as night falls is our best plan. There is no urgency—whatever happened to those people happened months ago, and whatever we need to deal with up there is probably not the only thing roaming these woods.”

“Like the bear,” said Tag.

A grizzly could kill a werewolf or two, but generally left them alone. Charles wasn’t worried about bears, and neither was Tag. These mountains had an uncanny feel—and however guardedly friendly Ford had been, Charles did not want to confront a Sasquatch out here unless he absolutely could not avoid it.

They ate sandwiches and made camp. Anna and Tag played double solitaire, which seemed to engender a lot of yelling, mock grumbling, and laughter. Charles read for a while, then put his book aside, stretched out a bit, and closed his eyes.

Waiting to head out until morning had been a practical decision. But sitting on a camp chair with his feet up on a stump, pretending to be asleep, Charles felt a contentment that had nothing to do with the possible dangers they were going to be facing tomorrow, though it was true Brother Wolf gloried in the adventure.

Cheerful voices echoed in the quiet woods as Anna and Tag bickered about how best to cook their dinner, whose ace got played first, and whether to cook their dinner (because werewolves weren’t picky about raw meat, even if human teeth had trouble ripping through a steak). If anyone else had been arguing with Tag that way, they would end up thrown through a door or into a tree when he decided to take offense instead of laugh. Tag’s temper was a quick switch.

But Anna was an Omega and Tag her devoted follower. She could even tell him the French lost at Waterloo without him going ballistic—or at least, Tag’s ballistic would be more measured. So they squabbled happily until Anna persuaded Tag into a duet.

Tag’s voice was a soldier’s voice, learned on long marches between battlefields, which made it very well suited to the outdoors. Anna’s sweet alto was better trained and she knew how to make her singing partners sound good. Their singing would have benefited from the addition of a baritone or bass, but Charles was content to listen, Brother Wolf lulled into contentment as a prelude to battle by Anna’s presence and the forest setting.

There was no campfire. The fire danger was too high—and he thought they were illegal in California even in the spring. They’d brought a propane stove for cooking.

He fell asleep surrounded by the sounds of the evening: the wind in the trees, his wife’s sweet voice—and the crackle of a campfire that wasn’t there. It did not surprise him to find himself engaged in a game of chess with his uncle, who had been dead for two centuries, more or less.

* * *

*

BUFFALO SINGER’S FOREFINGER, which he tapped lightly on the edge of the table, was twisted from a fall when he’d been a boy, and he had a faint scar on the corner of his mouth. Charles had remembered the finger, but he’d forgotten about the scar. His uncle, only fifteen years older than Charles, had not been an old man when he died.

Buffalo Singer had been the one who most often took the boys on teaching expeditions or trained them in fighting, endlessly patient with the youngsters. He was the youngest of Blue Jay Woman’s brothers, and though he never played favorites, he had a softness for his dead sister’s son.

Bran Cornick had taught Buffalo Singer chess and found in him a worthy opponent. Buffalo Singer had taught Charles. Bran had taught Charles what he needed to know about being a werewolf and a little about dealing with being witchborn; he did not play with his son.

The battered chessboard balanced on a folding table made of sticks and buckskin—a device his da had fashioned for the purpose. Charles and his uncle sat on either side of it, staring at the board and thinking about possible moves. Charles had always thought those long evenings of motionless attention were how he had learned patience.

A commotion behind them had Buffalo Singer rising to his feet, a welcoming smile on his face—and Charles realized what day in the past his dreaming had returned him to.

Da was home, riding into camp with a strange white woman riding beside him. Horses were rare still, and his father had left on foot. These two were both chestnuts, and one of them had a great splash of white on her face that came down over one eye—and that eye was blue.

Bran dismounted and handed the reins of his horse to Charles, which surprised him. After a long journey, his da usually avoided noticing his son for as long as possible. But today he gave Charles a nod of thanks and then took the reins of the blue-eyed horse and gave them to Charles as well.

The woman slid down, landing lightly on her feet. Charles had time to notice both of her eyes were as blue as the horse’s eye—and Charles had never seen anyone with blue eyes—then his da spoke to him.

Charles knew it was to him because Bran used English. Charles was the only one besides his da who spoke English in the whole camp.

“This is Leah, my mate.”

Then he turned to the rest of the camp and introduced her again. Charles looked up at the woman who would, the dreaming Charles knew, never be his mother and saw indifference. It didn’t matter, that boy told himself. He had his uncles and aunts and his grandfather, who all loved him. He did not need this woman as his mother.

The dreaming Charles saw something else. He saw Leah’s cheeks were gaunt and her hands shook when she wasn’t paying attention. He saw the wildness of the wolf in her eyes—and a bottomless, aching, unassuageable grief too deep for tears.

He remembered his da had told him one of the children he and Sherwood had buried had been Leah’s.

In the way of dreams, Charles found himself seated on the ground, once more facing his uncle. But there was no camp, no Bran or Leah, no other people at all. The forest closed around them, dark and endless—but not dead. He could hear the birds and squirrels chittering at each other, feel the insects going about their business. Far away an eagle cried out.

Buffalo Singer’s clever, callused fingers slid a pawn over to capture Charles’s queen. He tapped the fallen piece with a finger.

“You be careful of her,” he told Charles. “If you lose her, you lose the whole game.”

Charles took a careful look at the rough-carved queen who only vaguely resembled a woman. His da had many talents, but carving wasn’t one of them.

He looked up at Buffalo Singer and asked, “Who is she?”

But his uncle merely shook his head.

Charles turned his attention to the chessboard and studied the game, trying to see where he’d made the mistake that had caused him to lose. It felt like it was important to see where he, where Charles, had gone wrong.

His uncle reached over with a bent finger and tapped Charles on the forehead. “Keep a sharp eye out. The story is about her.”

“Dinner!” called Anna cheerfully from somewhere.

His uncle looked up, a quick grin crossing his face. “I like her,” he said. “She’s feisty.”

Charles looked up into Anna’s face. “I like you, too,” he told her.

She laughed and kissed him. He liked that, too.

CHAPTER

4

They found a trail at midday. It looked just like several others they’d found. But this one, unlike the others, carried no recent human scent.

Tag discovered a candy wrapper, battered and faded to pale colors by the sun and weather. Charles nosed the wrapper, and after a moment’s consideration, set off on the trail. There was something—maybe it just headed in the right direction—that distinguished it in Charles’s mind from the others. Maybe the spirits who lived in the forest directed him. With Charles it was hard to tell. Tag waited for Anna to follow, and he took up the rear.

Save me from protective males, thought Anna with half-irritated amusement. She was a freaking werewolf, for heaven’s sake; she could take care of herself.

We protect our most dangerous weapon, Brother Wolf assured her.

Anna chuffed a laugh. She knew that Brother Wolf was serious. He could joke sometimes, but he never mocked. She just had no idea what prompted him to consider her more dangerous than Charles . . . or Tag.

The woods around them were full of deer, and at one point she caught the distant scent of elk. Coyotes abounded; one trailed them for a few miles out of curiosity. Twice, early in the morning, they had come upon bear sign—probably the bear that had been seen at their camp.