“Sabine,” Adne said in a strained voice. “Look.”
“Look at what?” Sabine was still watching Shay.
“Where Shay’s looking,” Adne answered, “in the woods.”
“I don’t see anything,” Sabine said. “He probably just heard something in the underbrush. He has much better hearing than we do.”
Adne’s pulse stuttered. “Are you sure you don’t see anything?”
Ren was looking right down at her. His eyes glittered in the moonlight.
“Do you see something?” Sabine asked. Her tone told Adne that, without a doubt, Sabine didn’t see Ren. But Adne could, and she strongly suspected that Shay could as well.
“No,” Adne said quickly. “I just thought because he’s looking at the woods so intently.”
“Wolves do that,” Sabine said. “Can we get out of here now? I don’t want to press our luck. Shay might think we’re okay, but Calla could decide to come back with reinforcements.”
“Okay.”
Sabine was already trudging away. “I guess we answered that question. Sort of.”
“Sorry?” Adne asked.
“Something is different about Shay,” Sabine answered. “He’s not acting like a wolf would—that’s what Calla did. But he is still a wolf, not a Guardian. I don’t understand why he’d be compelled to protect us.”
As they retreated down the slope, Adne threw one last look behind her. Shay had turned to face them again. The golden brown wolf was sitting on his haunches, watching them leave. In the woods behind Shay, the other wolf was gone, and instead a boy stood there.
Adne felt her throat close as Ren raised his hand and waved good-bye. She didn’t know how it was possible or what it meant, but Adne was certain that her brother had just saved her life.
REN STILL HAD a hard time feeling at ease with his ability to move through the world without being seen. That was why he preferred spending most of his time in wolf form, running through the woods. Hidden among the trees, Ren could forget that he was less than a shadow in this world, that he was seen only by those who tapped into the magic that had kept him on this plane after he’d died.
As he made his way down one of Rowan Estate’s long halls, Ren felt more like a ghost than ever. The labyrinthine mansion was the kind of place a ghost belonged. Ren didn’t want to belong at Rowan Estate.
He’d wandered these halls many times while keeping an eye on Adne. But those visits had been on his terms. Tonight Ren was little more than Logan Bane’s errand boy, hardly a role to be relished. It wasn’t as if he slunk off, tail between his legs, to do Logan’s bidding.
From the moment Logan had sent him after Sarah Doran, Ren had been fighting the command to no avail. Resisting didn’t cause Ren pain, nor did he feel like someone else was in control of his mind and body. He simply couldn’t stop himself from going to find Sarah.
Though Logan wouldn’t hesitate to name himself the executor of this power, Ren suspected that his inability to resist the Keeper’s commands had a different source.
You are here because I willed it to be so and you cannot destroy that which created you.
The more Ren thought about it, the more convinced he was that his existence as a spirit had been devised and continued to be manipulated by Bosque Mar. Ren didn’t know why Bosque would have determined that the alpha Guardian was the best choice for the role. Perhaps the Harbinger expected that Ren would blame the Searchers for his untimely end, and desire vengeance because of it. But Ren had a creeping feeling that Bosque’s selection had far more to do with Ren’s tie to Adne.
I don’t wish to hurt Ariadne. Quite the opposite.
Ren knew there were far worse things Bosque could do to Adne than physically harm her. He swore to himself and to his sister that he would do everything in his power to stop Bosque from fulfilling whatever plans he had for Adne.
To that end, Ren had begun to test the boundaries of his spirit form. Ren found that he could manipulate Logan’s commands in small ways. For example, he had the ability to put himself in the same room with Sarah, but instead Ren had traveled to Rowan Estate’s grounds, taking his time to enter the mansion and make his way through its dark halls. He’d even been able to make a detour to Haldis before carrying out Logan’s wishes.
Ren sensed that he would only be able to take these acts of rebellion so far, though. For example, he was pretty sure that if he’d tried to arrive at Rowan Estate via a cross-country excursion, some unseen force would have prevented it. Even knowing that in his current state his life wasn’t completely his own, Ren found hope in being able to exert his will at all. It meant that while he was being kept in check by Bosque’s power, there were limits to what the Harbinger could control as well. Ren simply needed to find as many ways to exploit those weaknesses as he could.
As Ren approached the room where he knew he’d find Sarah, his wolf senses were overwhelmed by a surprising but familiar scent.
Shay?
Quickly dismissing the notion that wolf-Shay had somehow ended up inside the mansion, Ren crept forward, poking his muzzle inside the door. Ren didn’t need the room’s décor, the comic books, or the clothes that still hung in the closet to confirm that he’d just entered Shay’s bedroom. Shay’s scent pervaded the air. Beneath it Ren caught another scent that he knew well. Snow.
Calla.
Without thinking, Ren snarled.
Sarah had been sitting in a chair beside the bed, staring off into space, but at the sound she jumped up and gave a cry of alarm. Steel flashed in her hand and Ren growled again at the sight of her dagger.
I’d forgotten that she’s not just Shay’s mother, she’s a Searcher. And Searchers are trained to kill Guardians.
Sarah stared at Ren. Though she didn’t sheath her dagger, she drew a long breath and shook her head.
She thinks she’s only imagining that I’m here.
Ren took a cautious step into the room. Now that he’d adjusted to the predominant scent in the room, he could distinguish what about Sarah’s scent was similar to her son’s and what was different. Sorrow clung to Sarah Doran like a thick fog, but Ren also smelled the acrid touch of madness in her grief.
If I wasn’t a spirit, I’d be in danger here.
Any wolf knew better than to cross a mother and her young. Humans weren’t as different from animals as they thought.