David nearly fell asleep in the saddle on his way back. By the time he got back to Brines, it was noon. David wanted nothing more than to go straight to bed, but if he did so now, he’d only mess up his sleeping rhythm. He had just gotten used to getting up in the morning rather than the evening. Also, the werewolf pelts would start to reek. Better if he dropped them off quickly.

Maybe, David mused as people stared at him on the railway, he should have gotten changed at the estate. And it might have been a good idea to find bags that would hide the heads and furs completely, too. The other passengers on the train did not look happy.

They all kept as much distance as they possibly could, though, and didn’t dare complain about him.

The guards at the station in Eoforwic were less cowed by his appearance. He was hailed before he had even made it off the platform.

“Oy, you! In the bloody coat!” they called after him. “Halt!”

David stopped wearily. Two guards hurried his way.

“You’re a werewolf hunter?” the older one asked.

“No, I’m carrying the crossbow and two severed heads because I like the looks they get,” David muttered into his collar. “Yes, I’m a hunter,” he added louder, when the two planted themselves right in front of him.

“We need to see a warrant for those,” the older guard said importantly.

“Right,” David muttered. “Sure.”

He put the heavy pelts down onto the ground, to rummage through his pockets until he found the bloody paper.

Literally bloody. The younger guard took it with a grimace.

“I’m here to report to the Lackland Company,” David said, while they studied it. “Or Duke George Louis, if he’s in.”

They let him go without making him show them the full pelts.

David sighed inwardly. There was no way a cab would take him as a passenger, and even on the busy streets of the New City, people gave him a wide berth. When he finally made it to the Lackland Company, the clerks were just as thrilled to see him as everyone else. Three of them informed him in a loud chorus that he needed to take his burden downstairs before he could get too close to their orderly desks.

When David dropped the heads and pelts off with the luckless clerk in charge of all werewolf matters, someone in the prison cells started howling. David considered walking over there to reassure them but then realized that seeing – and smelling – him covered in the blood of their own kind would probably do the opposite.

“I suppose these are the right pelts,” the clerk said, somewhat uncertainly, while looking back and forth between the descriptions the navvies had given and the pelts, which were mostly red with blood.

“Sun, we need a better system than this,” muttered the man, but finally signed some document, added a seal, and opened a little safe to hand over the bounty.

David had meant to go home as soon as he had been given his reward, but of course, at that point, a messenger boy came running to inform him that George Louis wanted to see him straight away.

David considered refusing. He hadn’t really slept for the past two nights, and he was too tired to play games.

But instead, he told the boy: “Tell His Highness there better be coffee.”

“Will do, Sir!”

David watched the kid speed away, and shook his head, before following at a leisurely pace. The stairs up to the duke’s office felt like a mountain he needed to climb. It gave him time to notice all the guards stationed around the large main hall. Had there always been so many of them?

“Well, don’t you look lovely today,” George Louis greeted him. David might have punched him, if he hadn’t been offering a pot of coffee with the words, too. “Please tell me that none of that is yours.”

“None,” David muttered between mouths full of coffee.

“Did you sleep at all since you left?” the duke continued.

David shook his head.

“How about dinner?” George Louis asked.

David gaped at him. He had to be kidding, right?

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But George Louis already continued: “I’ll throw in a bath and some fresh clothes, too.”

“I’m not wearing your clothes,” David managed. “That’ll just give you ideas.”

“Oh, come on. Do you really hate me so much that you’d rather walk back to the station right now? I promise it’ll be nothing other than dinner.” The duke sighed. “Look, I’ll have someone bring you home tonight, too.”

David closed his eyes and tried to form a coherent answer, but then he just nodded. “Fine,” he finally managed. “Dinner. But you better get me home tonight.”

“Excellent,” George Louis said, rubbing his hands.

By the time David had finished the coffee, the duke had finished whatever he had worked on and organized them a carriage. An escort, too.

“We’re there,” George Louis woke him up. When David jerked upright, he added: “Are you going to be all right on your own, or do you need me to be there, to make sure you don’t drown in the bath?”

“Hilarious,” David muttered.

They had stopped in front of a palais in the Old City. David realized that he had never asked where George Louis lived when he was in Eoforwic. If he had thought about it, this would have been the kind of place he imagined: A tall wall surrounded the whole place, with a handsome wrought-iron gate. The mansion behind it looked like it was bigger than Heron Hall, and the whole place was bustling with footmen and guards.

The servants were trying hard not to stare at David, but not all of them succeeded. Little George didn’t even try when he greeted them at the door.

“Have you been in a fight?” he asked, excited in the way that only someone who had never seen real death up close could be about so much blood. “A duel? Did you kill a man?”

“Hunt,” David said.

“Oh,” George said.

“He had to kill two werewolves,” his father added. “He also didn’t sleep in a couple of days, so don’t expect too much eloquence from him.”

“Eloquence,” David muttered. “Important word to know for a kid his age.”

“Oh, hush. When did you learn to use a crossbow?”

“Don’t remember.”

“When will you teach me how to use a crossbow, Dad?” George asked promptly.

David couldn’t help but laugh. “When he’s learned himself.”

George Louis slapped him gently across the back of the head. “I can shoot.”

“A barn door, sure.”

He caught the hand when George Louis tried to slap him again, possibly not quite as gently this time.

“Go get cleaned up,” the duke said, waving over a servant.

David wondered whether the house had its own telegraph line, or how else George Louis had informed his people so quickly, but there was a hot bath waiting for him, and more coffee, too. He fell asleep as soon as he was stretched out in the large tub, but he did manage to keep his head above the surface just fine.

It probably shouldn’t have surprised him that when he woke up, George Louis was sitting on the chair over which David had thrown his dirty clothes earlier. He was pretending to read. The dirty clothes were gone.

“You’re impossible, you know that?” David asked. Not that there was much of him to see. The foam had held up quite well.

“It has been mentioned before. You’re sure you don’t want me to join you?”

“Positive. How long did I sleep?”

George Louis glanced at his pocket watch. “If you fell asleep right away, about an hour.”

Well, that explained why the coffee was cold. The bathwater was getting there, too.

“Are you sure you want to go back to Brines after dinner? We do have guest rooms here.”

David just glared at him, until the duke looked away.

“Fine. I’ll let the driver know to be ready. And I’ll have some clothes brought in now.”

He got up and actually left David alone long enough that he could clean himself up all the way, and then get dry and dressed. The manservant who had brought the clothes was waiting in front of the bath’s door to show him the way to the drawing-room where George Louis was having a cigar, still carrying his book. David picked one of the plush armchairs and leaned back.

“Cigar?” George Louis asked. “Or do you still not smoke?”

“Pass,” David said, without opening his eyes.

“How long will it take you to recover?”

David frowned at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean, will you be back tomorrow at the Company?”

“Of course I’ll be back tomorrow,” David said. “I need to check on Alvin and the others.”

“I see. I suppose this isn’t anything unusual for you.”

David shrugged. “Doing it on my own is unusual. Normally, there’s at least Nathan at my side. Makes it more exhausting, when you constantly have to look over your shoulder in case something unexpected happens. But being out in the forest for a couple of nights or three, and not sleeping properly, that’s pretty par for the course.” He shrugged again. “Sometimes it takes a week, sometimes it takes a month to get the werewolf. That’s how long you stay out in the field.”

“What’s the longest you ever went without sleep?”

“Any sleep? Never longer than a couple of nights. But going for a couple of weeks with never more than four hours of sleep per day isn’t unusual.”

“Must be terrifying, being a werewolf, and having you on the trail.”

“I don’t know. Bernadette’s pack said the same, Greg mentioned. I think I’m not that much worse than father, or Nathan.”

“Worse? I can’t think of anyone I’d rather have watching my back. And I realize that you’re still mad at me. But will you do at least that?”

“I can’t protect you against magic,” David pointed out, surprised by this sudden turn the conversation had taken. “Or poison.”

When George Louis just looked at him, he added: “As far as conventional threats go, you can count on me.”

“Thank you.”

“Is there a specific reason for this request, or is this just general paranoia?”

George Louis shrugged. “There have been warning signs,” he said. “You may have noticed that I had the guard around the Company strengthened, too?”

David rubbed his face. “I did,” he said. “Got any amulets, something to protect you against magic?”

“Several, yes. Would you like one, too?”

David shook his head. “Wish I had brought a sword, though,” he yawned. “Pistol, too, if there’re going to be assassins.”

“Well, if you’ll allow me, I’ll be happy to have you armed properly.”

David hesitated only a second before he nodded.

Young George slipped into the room then, a chess set folded under his arm. David didn’t play, but he forced himself to stay awake and watch as George Louis taught his son about strategy, about thinking several steps ahead, and setting up a battlefield so that every move your opponent could make could be turned to your own advantage.

He couldn’t quite help the feeling that George Louis had been setting him up the same way.