he abandoned his vigil and retreated into the room. I had checked on him on the way to the bathroom: he was slumped in his chair, sunken deep into a dream.
Julie appeared in the doorway, carrying two mugs. She approached, handed one cup to me, and sat by my feet. I sipped from the mug. Hot tea, with lemon. I had taught her how to make it properly. Apparently, it stuck.
"Why the cage?" she said, pointing to the hole in the floor, where the silver and steel bars glinted weakly. "I almost walked into it."
"It's a loup cage. Every shapeshifter safe house has one, just in case." If Derek went loup, Jim and Doolittle wanted to contain him quickly. It wasn't a thought I cared to contemplate. And certainly not a thought I cared to discuss with Julie.
"How did you meet?" she asked softly.
"Hm?"
"Derek and you. How did you meet?"
I didn't really want to talk about it. Still, it was better than wallowing in my despair. "I was looking for Greg's killer. The Order had given me the last file my guardian was working on, and I had retraced his steps, trying to find out why he was killed. The file led me to the Pack. I didn't realize this at the time, but Greg had worked very closely with the Pack. There was a feeling of mutual trust between him and the shapeshifters. But they didn't know anything about me and I didn't know anything about them. I only knew that Greg had been torn to pieces by somebody's claws."
I took a swallow of my tea. "I had access to Jim - we had worked together in the Guild - and Jim told Curran about my investigation. Curran decided to find out what I knew and had Jim arrange to meet me. In Unicorn Lane of all places. It didn't go well."
Julie snorted quietly. "Big surprise."
"Yeah. Now when I look back at it, I realize it was a test. His Furry Majesty was trying to gauge what I was made of and I showed him." I shrugged. "Live and learn." So many problems could've been avoided if I hadn't crouched down in the darkness and called out,
"Here, kitty, kitty, kitty."
"What happened next?"
"Eventually the Pack invited me to one of their gatherings to discuss things in greater detail.
You've seen how they treat outsiders. Bite first, apologize later. They brought me to their Keep in the middle of the night and led me underground to this huge room. I stepped inside and found half a thousand shapeshifters and they weren't happy to see me."
"Were you scared?"
"I was scared I'd blow it. I realized by this point that if I couldn't get the Pack to work with me, I'd make things a lot harder for myself. I had gone from a no-name merc to making arrangements with the head of the People and the Beast Lord, and I was seriously outclassed.
I wasn't used to that."
"I know what you mean," Julie murmured. "You try your best and only make yourself feel stupid. Everybody seems to know some sort of secret that you don't and that makes them better than you."
I reached over and petted her wispy hair. "The school's that bad, huh?"
"Sometimes. It's okay usually. But there are mean people and they do nasty things, and if you call them on it, they make it seem like you just don't get it." She squeezed her hands into tight fists and said through clenched teeth, "They make me so mad. If we were on the street, I'd punch them. But if I do punch them, that will just mean I can't win by their dumb rules."
"Well, then you know exactly how I felt." I could do the punching. Punching was easy. It was the clever banter and dealing in convoluted half-truths and almost-lies that made me want to jump out of my skin.
"So what did you do?"
"I made my way down through the room, and this group of young shapeshifters barred my way and started making lots of noise. I knew Curran had put them up to it to see what I would do. One of them reached out and touched me, and I took him over with a power word and made him guard me against the rest."
"Derek," Julie guessed.
"Yep. And then it turned into this huge complicated deal, because Curran thought I was challenging him by taking his wolf . . ." I waved my hand. "In the end, Derek swore a