One day before new moon, Lane and David watched from the sidelines how Eyal and crew moved into the city in a huge parade. The people of Mannin welcomed them like heroes, as if the railway line was already completed. Duke George Louis wasn’t present, but his steward of the city was there to give a speech, praising the duke and the workmen almost equally.

Lane smiled wryly at the frown on David’s face, which deepened the longer the steward talked.

When he shook his head in annoyance, she quickly looked away, before she started to giggle at his face. To many others, that expression would probably have been frightening, but to her, that curl of his upper lip mostly looked funny.

Morgulon was nowhere in sight, unsurprisingly, but Lane thought she spotted the young werewolf-man who had warned them away when they had been trying to find Morgulon. He could easily pass as human, and Lane didn’t notice anyone else.

A huge cheer went up in the crowd when the steward finally finished his speech with a promise of free beer to everyone in the city.

“Do we try to fight our way through?” David asked.

Lane eyed the crowd between them and the navvies. “I’d rather go see if I can find Morgulon right away,” she said.

David nodded. “In that case, I’ll come with you.”

“Appreciated.”

Finding Morgulon turned out to be surprisingly easy. Lane had worried that maybe she would be staying back at her nest, but instead, she was waiting with three other werewolves, right where the railway line emerged from the trees.

They eyed Lane and David suspiciously as they dismounted, but Morgulon greeted Lane by pushing her head so hard into Lane’s chest that she almost fell over.

“We brought food,” David said, keeping a few feet of distance.

“Did Eyal send you?” asked the only werewolf who was in his human shape.

“We haven’t yet had a chance to talk to him, no,” David said. “There was too much of a crowd.”

“Was it – a good crowd?” the man asked. He looked old in his human body, and worried, spent from years of hard labour and too many bad things seen.

“Yes,” Lane said, when David paused, looking confused. “If anyone noticed that they brought some werewolves into the city, they didn’t mind.”

“Oh, good,” the old man sighed. “That’s good.”

Morgulon had apparently heard enough. She was starting to sniff the bags of food they had brought. It didn’t take her long to find the chocolate, and for a moment, she paused, like she was really thinking about turning human right away. To Lane’s disappointment, she just wagged her tail a couple of times, and gently pulled at the package with the ham.

Lane’s mare whinnied nervously, eyes rolling. She calmed down again when Lane started taking the burden off her back, and Morgulon retreated a few steps.

“You could enter the city tomorrow, if you would like to,” David told the werewolves, who were all starting to look excited about the food, while he unpacked as well. “We’ve talked to the city guard about it, they say it’s fine.”

David paused when he was suddenly looking at two naked women flanking the old guy who had already been human.

“They’ll let – they’ll let us come into the city?” one of them asked, and she looked like she was about to be crying. “Into the actual inner city?”

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“For new moon, yes,” David said, gently. “There’s a circus in the city,” he went on. “We talked to someone there, too, and they won’t mind if you catch a show. Can’t promise you a hotel room for the night, though.”

One young woman hugged him, a brief, awkward hug, and then ducked away, mumbling something about clothes. She returned a couple of minutes later, wearing a simple dress, and carrying another one for the second woman. Nothing for Morgulon, as far as Lane could see.

In the broad daylight, it was easier to see that Morgulon was pregnant, though it wasn’t too noticeable while she was a wolf. Mostly, she wasn’t as malnourished as Lane remembered.

Lane was dying to ask Morgulon if she had any idea what month she might be in, but it didn’t look like she was about to turn human anytime soon. She had settled down on the ground and was slowly eating a piece of ham, savouring every bite, from the way it looked.

Lane eventually settled in next to the she-wolf, while David made a campfire, a few yards away from the group.

“What’s your name?” Lane asked the other werewolves, trying for a friendly tone.

“Mia,” one young woman said. “And you’re the, uh...”

Mia fell silent, clearly embarrassed.

“You can call me Lane.”

“Thank you,” Mia whispered. “And thank you for all the food.”

The old guy introduced himself as Charles. The other woman called herself Jody. The werewolves ate in slightly awkward silence, sometimes glancing at Lane or David, all of them watching Morgulon.

It was she who finally broke the silence with a soft huff.

Jody promptly looked up at Lane. “Morgulon wants to know about the Circus?” she said.

So Lane told them about the show they had seen, and how they had asked later. “Do you want to go?” she finished.

Morgulon thought that over for a while, then looked at Jody again, who dutifully asked:

“Will the guards be okay with a werewolf who actually looks wolf?”

That gave Lane pause. “It’s new moon night, the night after tomorrow,” she pointed out.

“Yes, but Morgulon won’t turn human,” Jody said.

Lane opened her mouth, closed it again. “Say again?” she managed after a moment.

She was almost certain she saw a smirk on Morgulon’s face.

“It’s too much of a risk,” Jody explained. “Any time she transforms, she risks a miscarriage.”

“So she just – doesn’t,” David said, looking as dumbfounded as Lane was feeling.

“No ‘just’ about it,” Charles grumbled. “It’s bloody hard. Painful, too.”

“Could you...?” Lane asked.

The other three werewolves shook their heads.

“Not for a long time,” Jody said softly. “I’ll probably be too old to have children, by that time.”

Lane didn’t know what to say to that.

“How about full moon?” David asked, after nearly a minute of silence.

“Full moon is full moon,” Charles said. “No getting around that.”

Lane was still trying to digest that. Morgulon could remain a wolf, even on new moon. Had to stay wolf, or risk a miscarriage. Did that mean she hadn’t been pregnant when she had performed that incredible slow transformation at Deva? Or had she just not known, and been lucky?

“How – how long did you all know that she’ll have – children?” Lane asked.

“After she came to the railway with us,” Jody said. “Couple of months now. Morgulon isn’t sure, but she reckons it’s less risky to transform in the first few months. Might even be fine if she turned today, but she doesn’t want to take the chance.”

“No, I – we understand,” Lane said.

Morgulon snuffled again.

“Mannin is a big city?” Mia asked for her.

“Mannin is quite a large city, yes,” Lane said. “Not quite as big as Deva, but close.”

Morgulon seemed to mull that over, too.

“She really would like to go, see the circus,” Jody said after a moment. “If you think it’s possible.”

Lane and David exchanged a long look.

“I say let’s try,” David said. “Can’t promise you they’ll let you into the city, looking like this, but at the worst, we come back here.”

Mia and Jody started pitching tents after they had all eaten, and Morgulon stretched out in a sunny spot and seemed to go to sleep. Lane thought she looked quite comfortable, but she still couldn’t stop herself from asking Mia:

“Is she all right?”

Mia grimaced. “We think so. It’s really hard to tell.”

Lane nodded slowly. “Do you know when this happened?” she asked Mia. “Morgulon said it was on full moon?”

“We aren’t really sure,” Jody answered instead of Mia. “But probably the first full moon after the work on this line started. We’ve tried asking Morgulon, but she isn’t sure, either. She can’t tell us much, cause she says she’s only seen her mother going through this, and she was a small child then. Also, it was different, cause her father was human.”

“Different how?” Lane asked.

“More human,” Jody said. “Morgulon and her siblings were born one after the other, right? We don’t think that’ll happen here. There’s going to be a litter.”

“Anything we can do to help?” David asked. “Food, or anything?”

“She’s still fine hunting,” Jody said, “and the crew has food for us, too, so that isn’t a problem. But no, I don’t know anything you can do, either. Unless you can find a midwife who’ll look at her. Or, you know. A veterinarian.”

“We can at least ask around,” David said.