I thought they were friends, was Zoë’s first thought, as she stared, aghast, at the wolf-forms of Remy and Danui trying to tear each other apart. Then she shouted, “Hey!” and flinched at how her voice broke into a squeak at the end.

Ainsel clutched at her, but the fighting wolves didn’t even flick an ear. At least, she didn’t think they did. They were moving so fast she was having a little trouble following them, especially in the dimness of the night forest. Their throbbing snarls told her as much as her eyes about how they moved and what they did.

Danui, the smaller one with lighter fur, seemed near-frenzied in his attacks on the bigger black wolf. At first Zoë thought he’d merely been trying to run away, but once Remy had blocked his initial escape, he turned the full fury of his attention on his erstwhile friend. Although Remy outmassed him noticeably, Danui used his lower center of gravity to go after Remy’s weak spots with savage success, leaving bleeding wounds across Remy’s legs and tearing one of his ears.

“Danui, stop,” cried Zoë. “Please—” Her voice broke again and her shoulders hunched even as Ainsel’s grip on her hand tightened. She’d felt so good when she found Ainsel. Clearly she’d come to some kind of accord with Remy, and she’d brought that enormous man along to help her. For a moment, Zoë had felt like everything was going to be all right. And now she had no idea what was going on. Why were they fighting?

The big man behind Ainsel growled, a far deeper rumble than what came from either of the wolves. Then he snapped, “Don’t you dare run away,” released the hank of Ainsel’s hair he’d been clinging to, and strode past them directly into the battle.

There was a sharp yelp as Galbaric’s hand swept down. He lifted Danui out of the fight by the scruff of the neck, raising his voice. “Why are you even fighting if you’re not trying to win, you wretched cub? You’re an embarassment. I can’t believe I even considered ever going a few rounds with you. What a travesty you would have made, what a blasted waste of my time!” He shook Danui in emphasis with his words but his attention was clearly on Remy, who crouched back, growling quietly.

Zoë, blinking, looked at Remy’s injuries and reassessed what she’d seen in the fight. Meanwhile, Danui hung limply from Galbaric’s fist, his ears flat and defeated, as the big man swung around toward Ainsel.

“You. Come over here and help him, however your impertinent friend wanted.”

“Oh!” said Zoë, remembering. “Ainsel, if you can heal him—”

Ainsel gave her a worried, wary look and Zoë’s heart clenched as she heard what she’d said, what she’d realized and tried to avoid admitting to herself. But what good was that now? Ainsel was something special, something born special, while the only claim Zoë had to being special was what she seized for herself. She’d worked hard on learning to notice and see things—and pushing away her own understanding was a rejection of that. A betrayal of her inner self.

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More gently, Zoë said, “It’s all right, Ainsel. Or it will be, once you fix whatever Tyler did to Danui.”

Danui spasmed in Galbaric’s hand, but Galbaric caught him as he transformed once again to a boy. “None of that, pup.”

Slowly, Ainsel walked over to Danui, and the boy looked at her with hope and despair warring in his face. When she reached out a hand, he closed his eyes. She touched his head.

Zoë held her breath. Remy whined quietly, his tail high and his eyes fixed on his friend. After a moment, Ainsel’s shoulders slumped and she lifted her hand, shaking her head, and Zoë felt the failure as keenly as if it had been her own.

“Well?” demanded Galbaric.

Danui gave a sharp, bitter laugh as he opened his eyes. “If you want to rescue the unicorn, you’ll have to kill me first.”

“No, Galbaric!” cried Ainsel, almost before Danui had finished.

Galbaric gave her a chilly look. “Don’t be a fool. Obviously the solution is to find my coat. Then I might, if you ask nicely, help you do whatever you need without resorting to murdering whelps.”

Zoë bit her thumbnail for a moment before joining the group around Danui. As firmly as she could, she said, “Danui, help me.”

His face twisted. “Yeah, that’ll work as long as what you want is some help climbing a tree, or finding a fray. But rescuing the unicorn? No. Not telling him Remy and Ainsel are back?” He shook his head. “It itches. I can’t stop myself. I can’t even kill myself.”

Zoë hugged herself, staring at Danui intently, trying to will him into doing what she wanted. Then she shook her head. “We need to put him to sleep and make him forget.”

“Like the unicorn did to you?” said Ainsel sharply, before turning away, her head down.

Remy chuffed and then flowed back into his human form. For a moment he rocked on his toes, as if he wanted to move, to say something. Then he settled back, focusing his gaze on Danui.

Zoë took a deep breath before moving to Ainsel’s side. “Yeah. Like Lucien did to me. It’s better than killing him.”

“Tyler’s people made his people like this,” whispered Ainsel. “And I couldn’t fix it. I could push the curse away from Galbaric and Remy. But what Tyler did to you and to him, I can’t touch that.”

“Hey,” said Zoë, a little louder than she intended. “I don’t want to lose what I took from Tyler. So that’s okay. But yeah, Danui didn’t ask for what he got. And maybe we can fix it later, but we’re on a deadline—”

“How?” Ainsel asked quietly. “How do we do what the unicorn did?”

“—and we have to do something and this is all I can think of—oh. Um.” Zoë blinked, and saw from the corner of her eye that Remy had switched his gaze to them, and was shaking his head as if to discourage the obvious answer.

She refocused on Ainsel and realized just how tense her friend was. She was actually trembling as she met Zoë’s eyes, as if terrified of whatever Zoë would say next.

Zoë’s thoughts seemed rocket-propelled by the overwhelmed hysteria that had started bubbling under the surface. She had to—

“What is this?” demanded Galbaric. “She—”

“Gal,” said Remy, very quietly, and Galbaric audibly ground his teeth. Ainsel never looked away from Zoë, something pleading in her eyes.

With a sigh, and as gently as she could, Zoë said, “Ainsel, we need to have a talk.”