Chapter 17

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For a bizarre and unsettling moment, Elaine blinked into a murky darkness and could not remember where she was, whose bed she was in, or what the hell she'd been doing before she'd fallen asleep.

Then she sat up, her gaze falling to a familiar pair of boots beneath the window and the stack of blankets beside them, haphazardly thrown aside, and it came back to her in a sudden and galvanizing rush. She panicked—if Claude had gone for soup when the sun was still up, he should certainly be back by now—before she heard: "You're awake! It worked."

"Huh?" She flicked her gaze forward, where Claude stood at the head of the bed, tossing his cloak around his shoulders. "What worked?"

Claude's expression was sheepish. "I didn't want to wake you, but I also wasn't leaving without you, so my plan was to make just enough noise getting ready that you'd wake up naturally."

"You sly dog," Elaine murmured. Claude made a face at her, but she ignored it. "What time is it? Where are we going?"

"About six in the morning."

Elaine stared at him.

"And we're going to Noppers Grove."

Elaine stared harder. "Noppers Grove. The place the creepy old man turned us away from the first time?"

"Yes. That's the one. Get up get up get up," Claude said, with far too much excitement in his voice for such an early hour, and for the current situation they'd found themselves in. "I'll explain on the way, but this might be our only chance if you're not trying to wait around here for another day."

Two weeks. Less than that, really. That was all they had if they wanted to make the most recent full moon the last Claude spent as a wolf. Time was not something they could afford to waste, Elaine understood. Even in her groggy, half-asleep state, she knew that with a biting certainty.

"I'm moving," she groaned, dragging herself from the bed. "Give me five minutes."



It took her five minutes to get ready to leave the hotel room as she'd said, but another five to truly shake the groggy, muddy sensation of sleep from her bones. She hadn't known just how tired she was until her head had hit the pillow, and only now, in hindsight, could she imagine why. Had she had a moment of true peace since Kellan sent her to find the prince? No, she didn't think so. She'd spent the past week searching: for Claude, for a way to get him back to Kristianstadt, and for answers. And now she was searching again.

When the airship station was directly ahead of them, Claude turned right, leading Elaine through a close-knit cove of cottages. The sun was yet to rise, but it was on its way, the barest slices of its light beginning to break through the bluish murk of receding night.

According to Claude, whose soup excursion had been for more than just soup, apparently, dawn was the only time they could enter the forest without the risk of running into the angry old man. Even so, Elaine had suggested they try from a different direction. Noppers Grove was no small plot of land. Even if Stans was there, he couldn't be everywhere at once.

They were a few feet from the forest's edge when the signature reader started its buzzing again. Elaine felt the noise more than heard it: a vibration in her blood, slowly waking her up, dusting off the slate of her awareness.

Claude paused and glance down at it, then back at the trees again. He announced, "We're headed in the right direction."

Elaine rested a hand on the knife at her belt, not to retrieve it, just to feel the weight of it in her palm. "Stay close to me once we get in there, Claude. We don't have a way of reaching each other if we get lost."

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