The horses were not very keen on the werewolf or her howl, and took off at a breakneck bolt that sent the wagon jostling with the speed of it.

“What just happened?” Barbra Allen asked.

“I don’t know how she could have made it more clear!” Orenda snapped.

“Keep moving forward,” Falsie said, “Bella’s a big girl. She can take care of herself. And if the Emerald Knight can’t take Gary out a couple of farmhands can’t do a damn thing to him. Once we get to the Burrow we’ll send Draco out to scout for them. Everything will be fine.”

“I ain’t never seen nothin like that,” Sarya said, “Never in all my days. That’s a werewolf? That ain’t what I thought.”

“What’d you think?” Anilla asked.

“I mean I reckoned it’d be a wolf,” Sarya said, trying to control her horses. “That didn’t look like no wolf. Didn’t look like no kind of dog. That was… that was somethin else! Ought he be riding around on that thing like that?”

“Bella isn’t a thing!” Orenda snapped, “She just… she has a condition!”

“Y’all need to calm down,” Sarya said to her horses, “Reckon I oughta play for them?”

“Oh yes!” Orenda snapped, “Let’s draw all the attention to ourselves that we can! That’s perfect!”

The night fell quickly in the late autumn, and the already the stars twinkled overhead. It was a bright night, at least, with the twin moons full and bright in the sky, and Orenda had to look for silver linings. They were almost there, almost to the man who had known both of her parents more intimately than anyone else; she had learned all she could about Garon from Gareth, but she was finally going to hear about the woman her mother once was. She was finally going to find out all she could- she had already began to believe it, that her mother had been an earth elf, but it didn’t feel real. She didn’t feel like an earth elf; she never had. She had always been an outcast among them.

But so had Sokomaur, if the tales were to be believed. She had been one of the founders of the Knights of Order; Orenda liked to believe that she was a leader who had united the pockets of rebellion that already had to exist, that she had perhaps given them a name. Xaxac had known her, had loved her, and Bella had said that he would consider Orenda his daughter because if genetics worked differently she very well could have been.

And Falsie was right, Bella and Gareth were strong. Everything was going to be fine.

There was a sound of alarm from Sarya, and the crash of splintering wood, and in less time than it takes to tell it the wagon was on its side, skidding with friction, ripping the tarp and Orenda’s cloak as the world fell and the roadburn tore at her with every tumble as she rolled. It had happened so quickly that she hadn’t had time to think, and when she came to a stop she had a terrible pain in her back, but she couldn’t focus on it, because the awful thing that just happened had to have a cause.

Falsie was already on his feet, Anilla was pushing herself up, Sarya had gone farther than any of them and was a good ways up the road, the horses were gone along with the mechanism that had once locked them to the wagon- and the wagon itself was in pieces, scattered up and down the road. But the most pressing thing was the monster lifting the box off of Barbra Allen, who laid in most of the wreckage.

Orenda pieced together what it was almost instantly.

The face and form were mostly feline, a sandy blond like a mountain lion, but instead of front paws the creature almost had hands, and Orenda knew it could stand upright, knew that on most days the thing was human. But right now those claws and teeth were sharp, and the muscles that moved under that fur were tightly coiled and strong.

Sarya took off at a sprint despite the obvious injuries she had.

“You get the hell away from her!” She screamed, but she shocked Orenda, because she didn’t go for Barbra Allen, she went for the broken driver’s seat, flipped it open, and pulled out her fiddle case.

Orenda felt that they didn’t have time for that, so the fire crystals she wore began to glow as she summoned a flame and hurled it at the creature. It hit it right in the chest, and as it pulled back in shock and pain it sounded like a woman screaming.

Then it turned its attention to Orenda, lowered itself to all fours, and sprinted toward her moving faster than Orenda had ever seen a living thing move.

“It’s a wampus cat!” Barbra Allen screamed, but Orenda didn’t know what that was, and if she had known it would have done her no good, because the creature had already swiped its claws across her torso, which Orenda took great offense to because that was where she kept most of her vital organs, and the pain was so great it made her think that she wouldn’t be keeping them there for long.

A loud bang rang out in the night, and the creature stumbled backwards- Orenda jerked her head to see that Falsie had drawn a gun similar to the one he had made for Gareth, and he had hit the creature right between the eyes.

“More than one way to skin a cat,” he said.

The crystals on Orenda’s medallion lit up as she cartarized the wounds on her torso, as the bleeding stopped she felt the warmth flowing through her, and remembered what Gareth had said when he had used fire magic to heal before. If one does not get a healer, it will scar. Orenda opened her mouth to ask Anilla to heal her, but she was cut off by a mighty roar.

He had shot it right between the eyes and it wasn’t dead.

“Run?” Anilla suggested.

“Never run from a wildcat,” Sarya said, “It’ll chase you.”

She drew her bow across her strings and said, “Cover your ears! I might not have went to no fancy magic school, but I know me some songs that’ll bring down the house!”

“What?” Orenda asked, but she watched the fiddle light up from the inside as an earth crystal began to glow, “You said you didn’t know any magic!”

Sarya ignored her and began to sing, “Hang down your head, Tom Dooley,

Hang down your head and cry,

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley-

Cause my boy, you ‘bout to DIE!”

The ground below the creature began to shake, and it was obvious to Orenda that Sarya had no idea what she was doing. It was a surface level shake, not a continental earthquake or even a deep spell as would be cast by a competent mage- and a competent mage would know how to localize it! As it was they all shook so fiercely that the force of it knocked Orenda off her feet and she hit the unstable ground hard.

“The fuck are you doing, you knife-eared cunt?” A voice rang out, and Orenda watched a teenage boy come over the wall on the side of the road, hit the ground lightly as if he did it all the time, and move almost too fast to track as he ran across the wobbly ground as if there was nothing at all wrong with it. His hair was far too silver for his young age, but he was difficult to make out because of his speed, and before Sarya had time to react he climbed onto the rubble she was standing on, jerked the fiddle out of her hands, reared back with it, and hit her so hard in the head that the wood broke, the fiddle snapped in half with an ear splitting twang, and Sarya staggered, then fell from the rubble.

“That’s how we fuckin do it,” the boy snarled, “Goddamn elves!”

“Sarya!” Anilla ran toward them.

The boy was human, Orenda could see now that he was standing still, and dressed in a silver sweater and work pants that seemed several sizes too big. He was ready for the cold with silver gloves and a scarf that had been wrapped around his head at one time, but had come undone since, and he was staring at Orenda with his strange eyes the color of the moons overhead. From a distance it made him seem as if there was no color in his eyes at all, only the pupil and the whites, and the sight unnerved her. He may have been the most gorgeous man she had ever seen.

The white rabbit?

But he couldn’t be. He was too young, and the moons were full, yet he stood, fully human before her.

“The fuck are you supposed to be?” He asked her.

“Xaxac?” Orenda asked.

Master do not trust this boy. The staff warned.

“Yeah, no shit!” Orenda snapped.

“We gotta go!” The boy said to the werecat, which was pacing, slowly, in a circle around the group. It snarled up at him.

“Goddamn fucking moons,” he said, “Goddamn stupid ass fucking timing! You can’t do this! I need you! Come on. Here, kitty kitty kitty.”

The werecat let out a high-pitched growl, and Orenda realized that he couldn’t control it any more than Gareth could control Bella.

“It was your idea to do this tonight!” The boy screamed.

Orenda spotted the staff; the wrapping had come undone a little in the crash, and the sterilite was sparking in the moonlight.

“Get down!” Orenda took a step toward him, “Get away from that!”

“I know you’re probably not used to this, you knife-eared bitch,” The boy spat, “But I don’t take no orders from elves!” He traced her eyeline and saw the sterilite where it sparkled, “Oh. Oh-ho-ho. Look at this… there’s no way… it can’t be…”

He fell to his knees and dug through the rubble as if it was nothing, then picked up the staff as if he had every right to do so, as if it didn’t hurt him, couldn’t hurt him at all.

Master! The staff called, Help me!

“That’s mine!” Orenda told him.

“Seems to me that sacred objects belong to whoever pulls them out the ground,” The boy clicked his tongue. “I see now… I see why she led me here.”

“Give me my staff,” Orenda warned, “Or I will set you ablaze!”

“You can try it,” The boy laughed, and it annoyed Orenda that he had a gap in his front teeth, that they were perhaps each a little too wide, because it was the only imperfection on his perfect form. Orenda was sick of good-looking men causing her trouble, and thought his arrogance may be linked to vanity. So she summoned another flame, and he made no effort to get out of the way as it hit him, as the rubble caught.

Orenda walked toward the bonfire to pull the staff, once again, from the flames.

Then the boy stood.

She was reminded of Gareth as the boy walked from what should have been a funeral pyre, holding the staff.

Then, he began to sing.

“Little bunny Foo Foo,

Hopping through the forest.” He adjusted his grip on the staff so that he was holding it like a bludgeoning weapon rather than a magical one.

“Scooping up the field mice,”

He swung, and the world seemed to slow down as Orenda watched the staff move- she knew he was going to conk her in the head with it, and she knew he could hit hard enough to shatter wood