It was pitch black by the time they reached the gates to Heron Hall proper. A footman was waiting for them and hurried to open them wide. Bram tossed him a coin for his troubles, and the man bowed deeply. If the weather had been nicer, Bram might have stopped for a chat, but tonight, everyone just wanted to get inside. As they rode on, the footman sounded a horn, which echoed through the gardens that were hidden in darkness. Only the path to the house was lined with lamps, and they could see the lights from the Hall now. As they were coming closer, Greg could hear voices, too, and without even thinking about it, he slowed Dolly down.

He had been certain that he had himself under better control than this by now, but suddenly his heart was racing and every fibre of his body was screaming for violence.

Dolly stood very still underneath him, as if she could guess what was going through his head, as if she could feel his bones shifting even through the thick leather of the saddle. Maybe she could. Somehow, Greg managed to unclamp one of his fists, to place it on her neck. He wasn’t sure which of them he was trying to calm down, but it didn’t matter either way. Dolly pawed the ground with one foot, chewing at the bit, almost as if in warning, and after a few seconds, Greg trusted himself enough to nudge her gently onwards.

It was a weird thought: that he probably wouldn’t have dared to walk into the courtyard. But it was okay to ride in, to ride in on Dolly, because unlike his family, the mare wouldn’t hesitate to carve his bones in with one of her iron-shod hooves, if he should lose it and turn on them.

He stayed at the edge of the light flooding the yard in front of the Hall, staying out of the tangle of bodies of people dismounting, greeting each other, footmen leading the horses away, Thoko and her mother getting introduced all around. Yet, his feet had barely touched the ground when his mother was already standing in front of him, worrying her hands nervously. Her dark eyes searched his face, and before Greg could say anything, she wrapped her arms around him, gently at first, then tighter when he didn’t protest, as if she never wanted to let go again.

“Hello,” Greg muttered and then felt stupid that he hadn’t thought of anything better.

His mother chuckled through the tears. “Hello to you too.” She looked up to him and eased her hold on him a little, gripped his shoulders instead. “Don’t you ever dare run away like that again,” she whispered.

Greg kept his mouth shut. He would have to run away again tomorrow unless Imani had found a place for him to go through the transformation safely.

His mother stared at him as if she was trying to read his thoughts. “Will you come inside?” she asked after a few seconds.

Greg nodded. “Won’t make a difference,” he said. “Just can’t go to sleep.”

As it turned out, that wasn’t a problem. Nobody in Heron Hall seemed to sleep this night. Greg couldn’t help but wonder what his parents had told the servants of the house. They gave him weird glances from the side but didn’t seem to be worried about getting near him while they served dinner and drinks. It was past midnight by the time his mother had the tables cleared and they moved over to one of the sitting rooms, where Imani wanted to hear about everything that had happened. This, at least, was somewhat familiar to Greg, only that usually, he’d been filled with a pang of envy when he listened in rapt silence to his brothers and father talk about another successful hunt.

Tonight, he didn’t really listen at all, just let the words wash over him while he focused on keeping his breathing even and staying awake.

Eventually, his mother retired with Thoko and Yamikani, to show them where they could sleep, and silence settled over the room, interrupted only by the crackle of the fireplace. His father was reading through letters and messages that had accumulated for him while he had been away, and Nathan appeared to have dozed off. Andrew had found a book, and David was tending the fire within the fireplace with a poker.

“You don’t all have to stay awake, you know,” Greg said softly.

Nathan opened one eye. “Not awake,” he yawned.

“Well, then go to bed.”

“Nah,” Nathan said, and closed his eyes again. "Too tired."

“Look, maybe I should get going,” Greg sighed. “Tomorrow –”

“You don’t need to worry about tomorrow,” David interrupted him. “Mum had the ice house cleared, and a new lock attached. It’ll be fine. Not comfortable, but safe.”

“Full moon is never comfortable,” Greg said. Because yes, the ice house should work. It was essentially a hole in the ground, covered with a domed roof of massive stone. If there was a sturdy lock at the door, even a werewolf shouldn’t be able to get out.

“What did she tell everyone?” Greg asked. “Did she say?”

His father looked up from his reading. “She told Mr. Paxton,” he explained. “In case you show up here on your own for whatever reason. Mr. Paxton agreed that it would only worry the rest of the household unduly if they were informed. Imani says, he was surprisingly unfazed by the news.”

Mr. Paxton was the steward of the house and had been in the family’s service for as long as Greg could remember.

“So they didn’t tell the other servants anything?”

“Well, Imani told them you had run away to join the railway, to explain your absence.”

Greg nodded silently. Of course. His father and his older brothers were gone so much, nobody would even wonder about that. Only he, the baby of the family, was usually wherever his mother was.

“Look at that,” his father said, looking up from one of his letters. “Duke Desmarais wants a meeting.”

“Does he say why?” David asked, brows furrowed.

“Letter just says he wants to uphold the “neighbourly spirit,” whatever that’s supposed to mean.”

“Great,” Greg muttered. “Just what we needed. The Imperial Viceroy taking an interest in us.”

“I don’t think you need to worry about this,” his father said slowly, scanning the letter again. “It doesn’t exactly sound urgent. Or official. Well, we’ll see what this is really about.”

“I can take him your answer tomorrow,” Nathan offered, without opening his eyes. “Maybe someone will give me a hint if I show up rather than a servant.”

“Very good,” Bram said.

It was a huge relief when the moon finally set a few hours before dawn. Greg retreated to his old room and dropped onto his bed, without even taking off his clothes.

David followed Greg over to the old icehouse the next evening. When Greg looked back towards the house, he thought he saw his mother standing in one of the windows, but it might have just been a trick of the light.

“Ready?” David asked when he noticed him staring.

Greg shook himself out of it. “Have to be, don’t I?” he grumbled and climbed the steps down into the half dome of the ice house. There was not much ice left down there, but it was still freezing cold, especially once he started taking off his clothes. David took them from him and handed him a woollen blanket back, and finally locked the door behind him without another word.

He didn’t go away though; Greg could still hear and smell him right outside the sturdy wooden door. He was still there when Greg managed to turn back to his human shape the next morning. There was a fine layer of new snow on his shoulders when he opened the door at Greg’s knocking.

David didn’t say anything while he handed Greg his clothes, or when they walked back to the main house. Nathan hadn’t returned from his trip to the Desmarais estate, Castle Blanc, but Andrew was sitting at the breakfast table. Thoko and Yamikani were just joining him.

Thoko grinned when she saw Greg. “This is a lot easier than in the forest, isn’t it?”

Greg dropped into a chair. “It’s nice,” he had to admit. “Waking up and knowing that nobody died. Also, not having to find the camp again.”

“Are you actually going to look for werewolves around here, or was that just an excuse so the duke would let you go?”

“We’ll start looking as soon as full moon is over,” David said in Greg’s place.

“Would you take me along?”

“You want to come along looking for werewolves?” David asked. “Why?”

“I can at least tell them about the work at the railway, can’t I?” Thoko said. “I don’t know – I just want to do something to help.”

“Even after what Duke George Louis did to you?” Greg asked.

“This isn’t about him,” Thoko said, shrugging. “This is about defeating the Rot, and driving out the Valoise.”

“Well, if you really want to,” David said slowly. “It’ll be tricky to explain why we take a woman out hunting, though, if anybody asks.”

“I thought you aren’t hunting.”

“Officially, we’re still hunters,” David pointed out. “That’s our best cover if we go around looking for werewolves.”

“But it might help, to have me along,” Thoko pressed. “If you find a werewolf who’s a woman?”

“I’m not saying you won’t be helpful,” David said. “But it might be hard to avoid the attention of the Valoise if you do come along.”

“She can go with Greg,” Andrew piped in. “Then we use both angles; we go out officially as hunters, and Greg and Thoko just sort of ravel the area, see what they can find.”

“They’ll still need some kind of story if they start asking questions,” David pointed out. “Preferably one that won’t make the Church suspicious.”

But before they could work out a cover, Nathan returned from his visit with His Highness, the Duke Clement Desmarais of Nedor Duchy, Imperial Viceroy of all of Loegrion, and as such representative of the Roi Solei himself.

“He’s in quite a hurry to meet you, father,” Nathan reported on his return. “Wants to talk about the White Torrent.”

“You actually spoke to him already?” Bram asked, surprised.

“Yep,” Nathan said. “The reception I got, you’d have thought I was a Marques, at least. Private audience with His Highness.”

“And what did you say?” his father asked.

“Well, I told him you knew about the problem with the White Torrent, of course,” Nathan said. “And that you might know a solution.”

His father rubbed his face. “But I don’t, Nathan. I don’t know why the White Torrent is suddenly overtaken by the Rot, after all this time. Sun, we can’t even say with absolute certainty that it is being taken by the Rot. And I certainly don’t have a clue how to fix this.”

Nathan raised his eyebrows. “So you don’t think having a couple of werewolves patrol the shores of the river might help?”

“Might, yes,” his father sighed. “But there’s no way to be certain.”

Nathan shrugged. “I also said that the Church wouldn’t approve. He didn’t seem very bothered by that.”