The door crashed open and the sword of bone flew into the room. The Suit named D’artanien thundered in after it, but the blade was in Darcy’s hand in the next heartbeat, its tip pressed to Beatrice’s throat. Shadows coiled about the mage’s feet, snaked up her legs, flared behind her shoulders.

Beatrice’s stomach twisted as her muscles petrified, locking her to the spot. But she did not cower, didn’t tremble or lose her water. For her eyes were locked on the frigid fire of Darcy’s—so like they’d been when first they met—and she could not allow those eyes to witness such an indignity. Not even now.

Yet Darcy was frozen too, save the heaving of her chest…teeth bared and gritted and knuckles gone white.

“I’m your wife,” whispered Beatrice. “Do you feel the sting of it still, the cut on your arm?”

“No.” Hissed Darcy.

“We’re Called to one another. I know you must feel that.”

The knight’s eyes widened, her lips pulling back in a silent snarl. But her hand trembled so faintly it was barely discernible, except that it pressed the sword’s tip just enough further that it drew a small cry from Beatrice as it pierced her skin. A slight stream of blood welled forth.

At that, what little there was of color in Darcy’s face drained away. She drew back the sword, her grip on it loosening as though she might drop it entirely. Emotions played across her features too chaotic and quick to decipher, her eyes searching Beatrice’s face with dawning…horror? Realization? Sorrow? Whatever it was, for a moment, it held her motionless to the spot.

Then a mask of iron resolve came over her, features settling into grim, hard lines. Her hand tightened round the sword’s grip once more, withdrawing it further. Drawing it back to strike.

In a rush of abject terror, power bloomed around Beatrice, the air crackling with light and color. The particles of her being flew apart and resolved into fox form just as the sword came forward—sweeping through the air where, only a heartbeat before, her neck had been. In the same moment, the door banged hard against the wall and Charles and Jemison tumbled through it.

“You!” The fury of Darcy’s growling shout rang in Beatrice’s ears. The next thing she knew, the men were hauling the knight back and away from her, trying and failing to wrest the sword away.

“Damn you, Darcy, stop! Listen to your spirits!” grated Charles, nearly taking a pommel to the eye.

“Unhand me, heathen scum,” barked Darcy. “I shall finish what I began!”

D’artanien clanked about anxiously off to the side, coming neither to Darcy’s aid nor her subduel. Beatrice knew little of Hyena magic and the ways of earthly spirits, but it was clear that this thrall, at least, was not Darcy’s puppet. He had a will quite his own, and the power to hold to it.

“Spirits” moaned Jemison. “She’s lost more time. We need Gray!“

Then Charles cursed as Darcy sunk her teeth into his arm, and the darkness that already writhed around her condensed. The sword clattered to the ground, and the shadows coiled like tentacles about the snarling Hyena that stood to its side.

In a rush, D’artanien swooped in to reclaim the sword. At the same moment, Darcy’s muscles coiled and she made to leap, golden eyes fixed on Beatrice’s throat. Charles lunged for her, catching her about the back legs even as she kicked and clawed and slipped free of him. Beatrice yelped and scampered back, but Darcy pounded forward, almost upon her. Blue mist erupted forth, and where Jemison had been there stood a massive Tiger. In one easy bound he overtook Darcy, pinning her to the ground, his growl filling the room like velvety thunder.

“LET ME GO.”

The words echoed inside Beatrice’s head. Darcy’s words, Darcy’s voice—but amplified and somehow heavy, as though it held the weight of mountains behind it. A shifted Silver’s command—the kind that couldn’t go ignored. But just as Jemison began to ease back, Charles stepped forward. A look had come over his face, one Beatrice hadn’t seen before. A look of absolute focus and command. A look of power.

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“Do not let her go,” he said. And though of course he was unshifted, there was a change to his voice. A greater depth, a resonance that shivered through Beatrice’s bones and her mind as she knew it must through Jemison’s. The Tiger stilled, Darcy struggling vainly on for freedom.

Beatrice’s fur rose on end as she stared at her betrothed in absolute bemusement.

How is this possible? The command of an unshifted Silver should not be able to override that of a shifted one. It was unheard of.

But then, Highreach was home to the unheard of, it seemed.

More footsteps sounded from out in the hall, and then Arron was there, eyes wide and hair wild from sleep. He brought something small up to his lips, and for one wild moment Beatrice thought it might be a flute. There was a thwip of displaced air and then a sudden snarl from Darcy. Then the light went out of her eyes, the growl died from her lips, and she collapsed.

Beatrice unleashed a high-pitched keen somewhere between a scream and a howl, scrambling around the bed to Darcy’s side. But of course, the knight still breathed. She was only unconscious, a small blue feathered dart protruding from her neck.

As Beatrice looked up at them, Arron and Charles’ eyes met. Charles nodded minutely, and the Wolf shifter bent and lifted the Hyena into his arms. He left with her then, and Jemison—still in Tiger form—followed. Going first to the washroom door to remove the dressing robe from its hook, Charles knelt to drape it over her vulpine body like a cloak, speaking softly.

“Were you harmed?”

She shook her head.

“Are you certain?”

She focused on his face, the face so like that of the man she’d once dreamed of and longed for, and breathed deep. Imagined herself human again.

Charles turned away from her as the air fractured with color, and in the next moment her human form was returned. Shrugging into the dressing gown, she pulled it hurriedly closed.

“I…I’m…” her hand went to throat, the tiny wound still raw, though the shift had stopped the bleeding. “I’m quite—”

But with Darcy gone from the room and the initial shock of her awakening beginning to ebb, Beatrice’s composure broke. Her shoulders shook and tears rose to her eyes. And then she was enveloped in Charles’ warmth and his soothing green aroma as he whirled around, leant forward and wrapped his arms about her. And although a small gasp escaped her at the sudden contact, she didn’t flinch or pull away, for nothing could feel more natural.

Instead, she leant into his embrace, taking immeasurable comfort in his closeness, his scent. It took her a moment to realize it, for she herself trembled like a leaf…but Charles was shaking too.

“All will be well,” he soothed nonetheless. “All will be well. Gray will find a way to set her right, somehow.”

“B-but she’s to leave so soon…he’ll have no time!”

“We shall find some way around that.”

“But how?” Beatrice was sobbing then, deteriorating into Charles’ embrace as he loosed one hand to stroke her hair.

“Leave it to us, Lady Stagston, and don’t fret yourself, it will do no good. The best thing for you now is rest. Please, allow me to escort you back to your own bedchamber.”

“I…I do not think I wish to be alone,” she hedged, leaning back to meet his eyes. They were dark circled, especially stark against the uncharacteristically ashy pallor of his countenance. “I should like to go with you and the others to see Gray and attend to Darcy.”

“I’m afraid your presence and mine would only make things more difficult for them,” said Charles. “She will wake soon. If we should join them, it would madden her further, and Gray shall need her to be calm if he’s to do anything at all.”

“But I don’t understand,” protested Beatrice. “How could she have come to form a pack with you, if she hated our kind so?”

Charles’ lip drew up to one side in the slightest of smiles.

“I can see you’ll get no more rest in any case,” he said, offering a hand. “So then, come. Let us make ourselves comfortable elsewhere. It’s time you were caught up on some family history. But the occasion calls for tea. Strong tea.”

And so they retired to the greenhouse balcony, D’artenien in attendance with the sword of bone clenched tightly in his gauntlets. At Charles’ request, another Suit brought the tea service—though someone in the kitchen had taken it upon themselves to supply breakfast as well. To her great shock, Beatrice found she was hungry, and helped herself readily to a crumpet with clotted cream and strawberry preserves as Charles breathed deep of the steam rising from his cup, gaze far away.

“When Darcy and I met, she was newly knighted, and I, freshly debuted. Freshly in shock. Of course, there was no one there to whisk me away and claim me. I was a ward of the crown, and the League took me that very evening.”

Beatrice listened with dawning horror, her unprecedented appetite suddenly lost. She put her plate down, crumpet half-eaten.

“I think it was a sort of…rite of passage, for them. To have Darcy do it. A way for the new blood to prove her loyalty, her fervor. And oh, did she ever do that.” As he spoke, his hands began to shake, tea sloshing from his cup. He set it on the low table, gripping his right forearm to steady it before worrying his hand over the fabric. Their eyes met over their abandoned refreshments. When he spoke again, his words were like barbs—opening fresh wounds to join those on her neck and arm.

“The scars I showed you were the least of her work.”