Greg and Thoko were sprawled over a bench in front of Breachpoint’s tiny train station. They appeared to be fast asleep, despite a steady drizzle. Lane paused in her steps once she spotted the way they leaned against each other. David walked over towards the two, who looked like they had been up all night.

Greg jerked awake before David even touched him. The young werewolf looked bleary-eyed at his brother and complained: “Seriously, David? How much silver are you even carrying?”

David took a step backwards.”No more than usual?” he said slowly. “Except for this, and it didn’t bother you last night.” He pulled out the amulet the duke had given him.

Greg rubbed his eyes, not looking at the amulet. “Guess everyone else at that party was wearing so much of the stuff that I didn’t notice.”

David let the silver vanish underneath his clothes again and Greg stopped rubbing at his eyes as soon as he did.

“Anyway,” David said. “I can see the train is already waiting for us. In case you two want to sleep under a roof.”

“Sounds good,” Thoko yawned.

“Did you two stay up all night?” David asked.

Greg and Thoko nodded at the same time. They were holding hands, Lane noticed, when they followed David and his gelding to the entrance of the small station. The inside was almost empty, since no regular lines ran to Breachpoint yet. Only a few workers and carriers were busy loading the duke’s private train, which would take them as far as the tracks reached towards Eoforwic.

Lane stopped one of them to ask: “Has the departure time been set yet?”

“No, miss,” the man gave back. “Train’s gonna leave when His Highness says so.”

There was only one waggon for passengers, all the others were freight compartments. Some of them, the workers were in the process of filling with materials for the final stretch of the line, some had been prepared with straw for the horses. When Lane led her mare up the ramp into one of them, Greg climbed in as well and settled down in the bedding.

David raised his eyebrows at him. “You don’t want to sit up front?”

“Nah,” Greg yawned. “I want to get some sleep. Plus, I don’t feel like watching the duke jump every time I move.”

“Fair enough.”

Thoko joined him. Lane considered staying, too – Morgulon wouldn’t want to ride in the passenger coach, either – but when she noticed the look between Greg and Thoko, she decided to give them some more alone time together. She could always change waggons when they picked up Morgulon.

But first they had to get out of the city. It was past noon by the time the duke finally deigned to join them, his son at his side. George Louis stopped in the door, the boy half hidden behind him. The duke let his gaze travel around the small room, and then stared at Lane and David, as if they might be sprouting horns.

“What’s taking so long?” David asked by way of a greeting.

“Have you seen your brother?” George Louis asked back.

“He’s in one of the waggons for the horses,” David said. “Sleeping, probably. Why?”

“But he’s all right?”

“Yes, George. What the hell is going on?”

“Marquess Rover is ill. The doctor is certain he has been poisoned. Quite possibly with death cap mushrooms. Incidentally, the de Clares left the city as soon as the gate opened at sunrise.”

Lane sat up. Rover? Poisoned? But that made no sense, did it? Why him?

“You two are fine, yes?”

“We’re fine, Your Highness,” Lane said, but she looked over to David to be sure.

“You’re certain about your brother?” George Louis asked tersely.

David nodded. “No need to look so disappointed,” he growled, when the duke’s face fell.

“Sorry,” George Louis sighed. “It’s just – this makes no sense. If they had targeted your brother and Rover was just collateral, I could at least understand the motive. But what are they to gain from killing Rover? Or anyone else, for that matter?”

“He’s dead already?”

“No, but even the healers have little hope.”

“Your theory might still not be wrong, Your Highness,” Lane pointed out. “Poisoning a werewolf is almost impossible. I can’t think of anything that would work, other than silver, and I don’t see how one might trick a werewolf into ingesting that. They’d know it’s there as soon as it touches their tongue.”

“You think Greg wouldn’t even have noticed a normal poison?” David asked back.

“Most likely,” Lane said slowly. “I only know that my father tried it,” she added. “And that it didn’t work.”

“Greg reckoned it would still make him sick,” David pointed out.

“But he never tried?” George Louis asked. “Do you think he’d be willing to test the theory sometime?”

“Unlikely.”

The flat tone of David’s voice made Lane doubt he would even ask his brother.

“We can ask Morgulon later if she knows anything about this,” Lane suggested. “Or maybe the doctor.”

A man poked his head in through one of the windows. “We’re ready, Your Highness.”

“Well, let’s go then.”

George Louis finally took a seat, leaning heavily into the cushions. His son settled down right next to him. The kid looked a little shaken. The duke’s expression was dour and silence fell between them until the train had moved out of the station.

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“You really think the Marquess was poisoned?” David asked.

The duke just looked at him. Eventually, he repeated: “That’s what the doctor said.”

“Who would take over as Lord Warden of Deggan?”

“Rover’s oldest son.”

“Is he competent?”

“He’s sixteen, so it’s a little hard to tell. I’m fairly certain that he won’t side with the Valoise, though, so I don’t see how the Empire will profit from his taking the post. It’s not like I’ll leave the kid alone to deal with it.”

“Well, who’re you going to make his advisors?” David asked.

“I was going to post Admiral Giffard there, anyway.”

“Who already got a promotion, and higher than he probably expected,” David mused.

George Louis shrugged, and then put an arm around his son’s shoulders. “There’s a good chance that the Empire will end up doing me a favour. Sun knows, Rover wasn’t an easy man to work with.”

“But you’re sure it was them?”

“Who else?” George Louis asked. “Lord Clermont suggested it was done to show how close they can get to us, to scare us. I suppose that might be true – it certainly doesn’t look good if I can’t keep my supporters safe.”

“What if they were after you personally?” David asked.

“Well, then they did a lousy job.”

“There’s no one else who stands to gain?” Lane asked.

“Only Rover’s son, and I don’t think the kid did it. If the succession was unclear – but Rover has three sons, they’re all healthy... Like I said, it’s completely pointless to target him.”

“What about Rover’s place on your war council?”

The duke shook his head at David’s question. “I don’t need to replace him at all, I already have d’Aubigny and Giffard for the naval stuff.”

“So the only ones who have anything to gain are those two?” Lane asked.

“Hardly,” George Louis said. “They already got their promotions. A murder like this would be really, really stupid of them.”

“How about something non-political?” David asked.

“I suppose that’s possible,” the duke admitted. “Rover wasn’t exactly popular. But consider the timing!”

“I am,” David said. “If you wanted to kill some lord for revenge or whatever reason, wouldn’t this be perfect timing? Everyone will suspect the Empire first.”

Lane leaned back while the two of them argued back and forth whether it was more likely that the Valoise was behind the attack or somebody taking the opportunity to get rid of Rover. Lane stayed out of it, mostly because she agreed with the duke.

Soon, the argument was cut short because the train slowed down in the middle of an open field. Barely visible in the distance was Oldstone Castle, and a cart was waiting for them. A single giant wolf and a few horses stood next to it. The prince climbed up onto his seat and pressed his nose against the window to stare as soon as they came into view.

“I’ll go check on Morgulon,” Lane informed the men. She had to jump down onto the muddy ground from the waggon, since there was no station here. She could hear Prince George asking if he could go and see the werewolves up close, but his father told him to leave them alone for now.

Lane shook her head. She really would have liked to know why George Louis was still so afraid of the werewolves.

When Lane walked up to them, Morgulon was already going up a steep ramp into one of the freight carriages. She was carrying one of her cubs in her mouth. Right behind her walked Dr. Barnett the veterinarian, cradling two more of them in his arms.

Lane checked and found that the last two were still in the horse drawn cart that had brought them from the castle. They were sniffing around and making agitated sounds, probably calling for Morgulon. Lane picked them up to carry them into the waggon Morgulon had chosen.

Andrew and Lee carried a stretcher with Nathan on it to the same ramp.

Greg poked his head out of the next door and retreated again; a moment later, Thoko and he jumped out to join everyone else. Greg took one of the cubs out of Lane’s arms – Lane had to admit that this made it a lot easier to walk up the steep ramp, which was getting increasingly slippery from the rain.

Andrew and Lee put Nathan down alongside one short wall of the carriage, and he remained flat on his back, arms crossed over his chest and staring up at the ceiling with an empty expression. He didn’t even seem to notice when Andrew left again to load their horses. Greg cast a worried look in his direction, but he didn’t seem to know what to say.

Lane placed the squirming cub with Morgulon, who was already digging into the straw as much as possible. Greg held up the one he had been carrying, stared at it for a few seconds, and then placed it with the rest of the litter as well. He picked up another one instead and settled down with his daughter on his lap.

Andrew was the last one to climb aboard, after he had brought his mare and Nathan’s horse into the next coach. He too stared at Nathan but then just sat down in the straw. Lane was a little worried about the silence of the usually so perky Feleke as well, but right now, she was more interested in Greg’s slightly waxy complexion. Or was that just due to the dim light in the coach?

“Are you okay, Greg?” she asked.

The youngest Feleke looked up in surprise. “Me? Yeah, sure. I’m good. Why, is the hangover that obvious?”

Lane smiled wryly. “Marquess Rover was probably poisoned last night,” she explained. “Duke George Louis suggested that you might have been the actual target.”

“Me?” Greg repeated. He shook himself. “No way. Just think about last night – Rover and I never even talked, or stood at the buffet at the same time. And why’d anyone try to poison me?”

“We weren’t even supposed to be at that party,” Thoko pointed out. “How would anyone target Greg?”

“True,” Lane said slowly. Thoko was right, of course. A poisoning took preparation; it was unlikely that even the de Clares just randomly carried a toxic substance around with them. And if the doctors were right about the mushrooms, it had to have been a very targeted attack, or every guest would be lying ill.

Which left the question: Why Rover?

“You can’t just drop a comment like that and not give us the whole story,” Andrew complained. “What in the five frozen hells is going on? We left you alone for one day, and already people are dropping dead?”

“Rover is apparently still alive,” Lane explained. “Or he was, when we left Breachpoint. The duke did say the healers see little hope.”

She told them everything else the duke had said, and afterwards, the discussion of possible motives started anew. Mostly, it was Greg and Andrew discussing, with Lee and Thoko sometimes adding or asking something. Greg was still holding one of the cubs. Morgulon didn’t seem to mind. She did seem to follow the conversation; Lane was still surprised when the she-wolf actually joined in, relying on Greg to translate for her.

“Just between us,” Lane interrupted eventually, “would it be possible to kill a werewolf with poison? Other than silver, I mean.”

Greg looked to Morgulon, who eventually shrugged.

“Morgulon never heard of a hunter successfully killing a werewolf that way, though there have been attempts,” Greg dutifully translated. “She also doesn’t want to rule out that a sufficiently strong substance might be used to kill a very young werewolf. She’s fairly certain that she herself is safe against such an assassination attempt.”

Greg paused. “I reckon the only way to do it would be with some kind of alchemical compound, which somehow – masks – the silver, but can release it during digestion?”

He looked at Morgulon for confirmation, but she just shrugged again. Lane could tell she was grinning.

“Yeah, okay, you don’t know anything about alchemy either,” Greg sighed.

“I think you raised a valid point,” Dr. Barnett spoke up. “What about silver salts? Would you notice those?”

“Most likely,” Greg said. “I could smell whatever they used to treat the ground around the building site for the Savre-bridge at Eoforwic even while looking human. I guess – if it were possible to make the silver magically inert? But in a reversible way?”

“Huh. I never studied alchemy much,” the doctor said. “But I seem to remember that it is one of the most magically active substances and that most alchemy seeks to enhance that property.”

Lane leaned her head against the rattling boards of the carriage and let the words wash over her. While Greg and the doctor discussed the alchemy of different silver compounds, Andrew turned to Thoko, to ask what else had happened at Breachpoint, and if she had gotten to see her old house.

Lane jumped when Morgulon got up to drop one of the cubs into her lap. She blinked in surprise at the she-wolf, who in turn poked Greg with her nose. He frowned at her and then turned to Lane:

“Morgulon says this one keeps kicking her and she wants to sleep now. So she wants you to hold him.”

Morgulon was already settling down in the straw again.

“She also says the train is making her nauseous.”

The young cub was already kicking Lane, too, but he calmed down a little when she cradled it up in her arms. She had a strong feeling that Morgulon was messing with her a little, but if the werewolf entrusted her with one of her babies, she wasn’t going to complain.