it. The time we did have together, though brief, was amazing. I learned by copying my father. I transformed into an eagle and we flew together, hunted together. Those few days were precious. Being with him, sitting quietly with him, I felt like I knew him and he knew me.
I try once more to stop time, but it doesn’t work and I need to eat. I need to transform, go animal. At least that Gift, my own Gift, really does come naturally now, though I don’t use it often. I’m not afraid of it like I used to be, but I know it takes me to a different place. The animal doesn’t care about human stuff, about Annalise or even my father. I remember when I was first learning transforming and I shouted at the animal, expecting him to listen, expecting him to understand. Really I needed to listen to him, needed to understand him. Now I respect him, my animal, my other me. He’s brutal and fast and wild, but he’s at peace with that, with the world.
I don’t need to strip off before I change. I stand, take a breath, imagine wolf and
* * *
We—my animal me—caught a badger. A good meal. I’ve had maybe four hours’ solid sleep. No dreams. And now I’m yomping along as a human, practicing my Gifts again, feeling good, feeling fast. It’s afternoon by the time I reach the place where I killed the two Hunters. I slow as I approach the clearing and skirt round it.
The land is flat here. The trees are mature and the earth under them is bare. The clearing is natural; a big tree has fallen and taken another couple with it so that three large tree trunks lie across the ground. They must have come down in the autumn, and now that it’s winter the area feels open and light but colder somehow too. The bodies of the Hunters are gone.
I don’t go into the clearing yet. I make my way round it, sticking to the edge, keeping trees between me and the open, just in case. I carry on round the clearing and find nothing. I’m sure I’m alone here. Fairly sure. Ninety-five percent sure.
Now I move slowly forward, keeping low and quiet, to where the bodies were. There are a lot of footprints, and not from the dead Hunters before they died but from live ones I think, and the marks lead north out of the clearing. They’ve taken the bodies. Looking at the tracks I think more than two Hunters and less than eight were here, which means four or six as they only ever work in pairs. But really I don’t read tracks well, so it’s a guess. And I’m certainly not good enough to say how old the tracks are, but the Hunters have only been dead three days so I think their bodies were taken recently. Very recently.
I try to follow the trail but I lose it and have to go back on myself and try again. This time I spot another footprint lying over one of the boot prints. This is different: something like a trainer, definitely not a Hunter’s boot. My heart rate jumps.
Annalise?
That’s a stupid idea. Why would she be here? The chances of it being her are minuscule.
But, still, minuscule is more than zero.
I follow the Hunter tracks, scanning further into the forest and after a short distance I see the trainer prints again. I follow them but it’s a slow process. I can’t do it quickly in case I miss something, and there’s no obvious path. Unlikely as it seems, I wish I had Nesbitt with me. He’s the best tracker the Alliance has, but he’s never around when I need him.
I follow the trail through the forest and through the afternoon, until the sun is low in the sky. It’s too dark to see footprints now, but I don’t need to. From the top of a gentle slope looking down into the next valley I see something better: a thin line of smoke coming through the treetops.
They must be relaxed to light a fire.
Or it’s a trap.
Celia’s voice in my head says, Hunters wouldn’t give themselves away so close to where they’d lost two of their own.
I’m not sure how many of them there are. And they can go invisible, thanks to Wallend and his magic. They used their invisibility at BB, and many Hunters I’ve caught since had the ability. But I’ve got