PERIWINKLE

I hop out the back of the van and spread my arms in the crisply cool air. It rushes into my lungs in a deep gulp.

This isn’t the kind of environment I’m drawn to. I can’t see any buildings or people in any direction, only the winding road with tall trees on either side. There are no emotions to absorb except for the currently subdued feelings of the men I’m working with.

But there’s something refreshing about the solitude that I’m not sure I’ve ever appreciated before. No need to worry about how I’ll be affected by my surroundings. I can take in more of what makes the mortal world special with no pressure at all.

The men have spread out along the sides of the road in what’s becoming our typical approach to each stop. There’s not much I can help with at this point other than confirming that I’m not picking up concerning emotional energy nearby, but they’re checking for any sign of the strange beings we’re looking for in their own ways.

Well, I guess it’s mostly Raze doing the looking. Out of the shadows, he prowls along the treeline with his lips parted, inhaling every scent that drifts on the breeze. A forked tongue darts past his lips.

Apparently basilisks—which as far as I’ve determined are really big lizards?—have a good sense of smell.

So do foxes, but it’s hard to tell how seriously Mirage is taking our mission. He took the stop as an excuse to completely shift into his shadowkind form and now is bounding between the tree trunks with whirls and flips, swishing his five busy tails.

Raze shoots a frown Mirage’s way, but I don’t mind seeing the fox shifter cavort around. When we’re cooped up in the van for a long stretch, he starts giving off a vibe of painful restlessness with a flavor that makes me think of cheek-puckeringly sour grapefruit.

I’m sure if he notices something strange out here, he’ll let us know.

I have no idea if Hail’s fae powers would help him pick up on any unusual shadowkind nearby, but he’s ambling along the edge of the forest too, in the opposite direction from Raze. He stops and tips his pale face to the beaming sun, and something in his expression softens from its usual icy sharpness just for a second.

I catch a trace of butterscotch pudding awe from him that brings a smile to my lips. “It’s gorgeous out here, isn’t it?” I say.

Hail’s eyes snap to me, his features hardening all over again with a spurt of a much pricklier emotion that I barely taste before it’s gone. “Of course you’d be thinking about the view. Still can’t see why we got stuck with a cream puff.”

I would protest that cream puffs are delicious and delightful, and also shaped very differently than I am even if some parts of me are on the round side, but just then Haze lets out a grunt of apprehension.

Jonah, who stayed by the van, takes a step closer. “What?”

The massive, sinewy man turns his head where he’s standing about thirty feet down the road, the wind rippling over his bronze hair. He opens his mouth a little wider, his tongue flicking farther over his lips.

His stance tenses. “Some kind of creature passed this way—not like anything I’ve smelled before. There’s something about the scent that just… doesn’t seem totally right.”

Hail snorts as he saunters back to join us. “Not totally right. I’m sure that description will have Rollick applauding our work.”

Jonah shoots him a glower of warning before turning back to Raze. “Can you follow the trail?”

The basilisk shifter stalks farther along the shoulder. “It’s faint, but I think whatever it came from started following the road here. It’s a little stronger when I walk this way.”

“Let’s see if we can catch up.” Jonah motions the rest of us into the van. “Raze, you sit up front with the window open. Let me know if I start driving too fast for you to pick up the scent.”

I scramble into the back and nab the spot on the bench closest to the driver’s seat. A rumble spreads through the cushions when Jonah starts the engine.

As he drives, Raze tips his head out the open window like an incredibly over-sized Doberman. His eyes narrow against the rushing air, but he seems to be able to track the scent through it.

“It’s still getting stronger,” he informs Jonah.

When we reach a crossroad, we stop so Raze can quickly survey the area. He strides around the intersecting roads with a purposeful intensity it’s hard not to watch, his muscles flexing beneath his tan skin.

Within a matter of seconds, he points to the left. “That way.”

We’ve only been zooming along in that direction for another minute or two when a shriek shatters the quiet of the wilderness.

My heart lurches. Jonah mutters a curse and presses his foot to the gas. The van roars forward.

We all sit braced, staring out the windshield, even Hail looking concerned for once. As we come up on a small cluster of buildings off to the side of the country road, a couple of frightened shouts carry from deeper in the settlement.

Jonah jerks the wheel so we careen onto the even narrower side road. Outside a squat brick building at the edge of the village, several humans have scattered around a table laid with a checkered cloth and several plates of food.

They were having a picnic. How awful to have such an enjoyable moment interrupted. Now they’re backing away from a dark shape I only catch a glimpse of amid the nearby shrubs.

Jonah brings the van to a rasping halt on the gravel shoulder and leaps out, but Raze has thrown open the passenger door even faster. He lunges past the panicked people toward the creature in the shrubs.

I dash after him, my pulse skittering with the memory of him falling during the morphball game. He was okay then, but we don’t even know what this creature can do. It or something like it hurt other beings Rollick thought could handle the threat.

As I run past the humans, my new leather jacket flapping at my sides, their fear washes over me like a deluge of pickle juice. Then a more potent wallop smacks me from up ahead.

From where the unknown being is crashing through the bushes.

“Stop!” The cry bursts out of me before I even think about it, but Raze listens. He skids to a halt just a couple of strides short of the shrubs, his claws already extended from his fingertips.

I hold out my hands in a calming gesture both for him and the being shuddering a few feet away. “It doesn’t want to attack anyone. It’s not feeling aggressive, only scared.”

I hear the other men come to a halt a short distance behind me. “Mirage,” Jonah says. “You can alter perceptions—can you make these people forget they saw this thing—and us?”

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“Faster than a fox fleeing a hound!” Mirage replies cheerfully.

I focus all my attention on the strange creature in the bushes. I can only make out some tufts of fur, the edge of what might be a wing, the lash of what I assume is a tail. It’s not all that large, only the size of a poodle, but the humans wouldn’t have known what to make of it.

I keep my voice as gentle and soothing as I can. “Hey there. We won’t hurt you. We just want to find out what’s going on. We’ll make sure those people don’t yell at you anymore.”

Thankfully, whatever Mirage is doing allows me to keep my promise. No more yelps or hollers split the air. Door hinges squeak—I think he’s persuaded the humans to go into the building.

The sour-rot flavor of terror starts to recede.

“Very good,” I murmur. “We’re going to come around the bushes so we can see you better. I promise we’ll give you lots of space.”

Hail scoffs under his breath. “This is ridiculous.”

“Let her try,” Jonah says, quiet but firm.

I move first, backing up a few steps and then easing through a gap between two of the decorative bushes. The shadowkind creature gives off a brief quiver of renewed anxiety, but it stays huddled next to its temporary shelter rather than bolting.

I’ve never seen a being like that before, but then, lesser creatures seem to come in a very wide range of appearances. This one gives me the impression of a bedraggled cat that’s ballooned to twice its ideal size, with crooked ears, a single seemingly useless leathery wing, and not just a tail but two other slim appendages whipping back and forth from its belly.

The men follow me, hanging even farther back. The creature starts to cringe away, and they freeze.

I hold out a hand toward it beseechingly. “You’re safe. We’re only going to look at you. See, we’re staying all the way over here.”

Its relaxes slightly. Mirage lets out a low chuckle. “Beating the beast with sweetness.”

At the edge of my vision, Jonah sends a smile my way. “Thank you, Peri. You’re doing great.”

Hail takes on a bored tone. “What the fuck is that thing?”

The moment he’s asked, the answer changes—because the creature does. All at once, its legs shoot up, its chest expanding, the wing vanishing into its side and a ring of spines jutting out in its place.

A shiver of surprise runs through me. “I didn’t think lesser beings could change their forms.”

Jonah’s brow has furrowed. “They normally can’t. I’ve never seen one do something like that before.”

Raze’s voice comes out uncertain even in its gruffness. “Neither have I. It’s definitely what I smelled before—and its scent just changed too.”

Even Hail sounds a bit taken aback despite his attempted nonchalance. “It hardly looks dangerous, in any case.”

“We don’t know that this is the cause of the problems,” Jonah says. “There could be something much bigger going on. It’s strange that it would have approached those people in physical form too, if it wasn’t trying to hunt them, which it doesn’t seem to be. I’m going to ask it to show us the rift it came through.”

I’m confused about how he thinks asking is going to work until he opens his mouth again and a string of sorcerous syllables tumble off his tongue. The hairs on the back of my neck rise even though the command isn’t aimed at me.

But this is one of the reasons Rollick sent Jonah with us. There isn’t any other way we could convince the creature to lead us to the place where it passed into this realm.

The creature gives its body a dog-like shake—and sprouts a couple of tusks from its now wrinkly jowls in the same motion. It turns away from the village and trots off toward the trees.

We follow much closer now that it’s being compelled, just a few feet behind it. The creature’s emotions have settled down enough that I only get vague impressions from it now—a little discomfort mingling with a flicker of relief to be heading someplace familiar. The sorcery doesn’t appear to have bothered it very much.

It sets off through the woods in a straight line, I suppose going directly toward the rift without worrying about the ease of travel. There’s no way we could follow it in the van.

Hail sucks a breath through his teeth where he’s tramping along beside me. “This rift had better not be a hundred miles away.”

Raze scowls. “We didn’t drive very far after I caught the scent. It could be close nearby.”

“Or we could roam all across the world,” Mirage puts in with a laugh.

Jonah’s tone goes dry. “I don’t think we’re embarking on quite that long a—”

It happens in a split-second. One instant, the creature is loping along like it already was, seemingly free of distress.

The next, a vicious fury hurtles out of it like a charred but bloody steak thrown in my face.

“Watch out!” I yelp in the same moment as the creature whips around, its body blasting outward into a mass of clawed limbs and horned tentacles, most of which are slicing through the air toward—

Hail flings out his hand, and a wallop of frigid air courses off him. The cold front slams into the creature and knocks it right off its feet, its dark gray flesh turned blue, its skin and scales frosting over. It topples over with a solid thunk, limbs rigid, as if it’s now a statue.

He froze it solid.

The fae man stares at the results of his hasty reaction. Somehow his alabaster skin looks even paler to me, with a sickly cast to his face. “I—I wasn’t trying to kill it.”

He’s too startled to suppress the waft of fetid gruel horror that rolls off him. Not only was he not trying, it bothers him a lot that he did this.

Hail might be a jerk most of the time, but a twinge of sympathy quivers through me all the same. I give him a grateful smile. “You protected us. It was going to hurt us, and you made sure it didn’t. You moved so fast—it was amazing.”

His striking dark blue gaze veers toward me. For a second, he only stares.

Then his jaw tightens. He makes a harsher scoffing sound than before. “As long as teacher boy doesn’t dock points off our assignment for going overboard, I suppose it’s all right.”

I can tell he’s simply squashing the uneasiness, not recovered from it.

Jonah swipes his hand through his rumpled hair, peering at the creature in its enlarged, especially monstrous form. “That… is not something I want to run into unprepared again. Peri’s right, Hail. You did what was necessary in the moment. I should have made my command clearer so it had no room to delay or turn on us.”

Raze’s expression has shadowed. “It didn’t seem like it would attack.”

I shake my head. “It wouldn’t have, before. It just… changed. A lot, all at once.”

All of us stand there in a moment of unsettled silence. Mirage breaks it with a flip through the air to the frozen beast’s side and a flash of his foxy ears. He points off through the trees, fragments of sunlight glowing off his golden-brown face. “At least we know where our journey should take us next. Hurray for a sense of direction!”