At midnight, werewolves started howling outside the Valoision warcamp, sending the sentries into a panic. Alarm were blown, and the whole camp woken for an attack. Whoever was out there just slunk back into the darkness, to repeat the same thing a couple of hours later, and than again an hour before dawn.

By then, everybody was annoyed rather than scared. David half expected the real attack at sunrise, but nothing happened. The camp woke up properly with everyone grouchy after the interrupted sleep.

One more day until the first night of full moon.

David leaned against the bars of his cage, trying to stare into the cage beyond Fleur’s. It was full of injured soldiers—David thought at least one of them was an unsettled veteran, but it was hard to tell. Many of them were still too weak to rise.

If one of them was unconscious—turning at moonrise without even a chance to fight it—then every human in that cage was dead.

If he warned the Valoise, every werewolf still in the camp would die.

David retreated back to the wall of the cage, pulling up his knees against his chest. He hated the choice he had to make. He couldn’t doom Fleur now, could he?

But to stand by and watch dozens of helpless people be ripped apart was hardly better, even if he didn’t know them personally like he knew some of the werewolves.

What would Morgulon expect him to do in this moment?

Fleur wouldn’t bite anyone, not tonight. Was she old enough, strong enough, to keep the others in check? But what about tomorrow night?

David groaned softly. Someone had to do what was necessary. He had lived by that maxime, and he still believed in it. But what was the necessary thing right now?

“Lord—Lord Feleke?”

Fleur stood at the bars of her own cage, staring at him. When he looked up, she waved, a small, urgent gesture.

David sighed and pulled himself to his feet, walking over. DeBurg and Pettau stared at him, while Fleur looked right and left. Finally, she said: “There’s—there’s a lot of rust on these cages, Sir. Lots of rust.”

There was not actually any rust on the cages. It took David a long moment to realise what she was trying to tell him.

“Rust,” he repeated. She nodded urgently, and retreated back to the other side of the cage before he could say anything else.

Rust was out there. There was an elder out there. David wanted to ask if Fleur could talk to him even over the distance, but kept his mouth shut. The Valoise didn’t need to hear anything else.

Had Ragna made it, too?

But it didn’t quite matter. If Rust was out there, close enough that she could tell, he was close enough to keep the young werewolves within the cages from turning. And if Fleur was telling him, there might even be a plan.

The relief almost knocked the wind out of David. He didn’t have to make the decision today. He had another night and another day to figure out what to do.

Unfortunately, someone from her cage ratted her out at about noon. David couldn’t quite fault the healer—moon rise was just a few hours away, and the man probably didn’t know Fleur didn’t have to transform.

And then the Valoise didn’t even believe him.

David smiled grimly as the panicked healer waved his arms and the soldiers he had atracked just laughed. He could just about imagine how the pisscoats pointed out that all the werewolves were dead. Right until another healer got involved, and then most of the cage.

The pisscoats were a lot less merry after that, even as the crowd of curious soldiers grew. At some point, a sergeant pushed his way in. David didn’t see what happened next through the mass of bodies, but after a few minutes, soldiers ran off and the whole thing escalated up the chain of command.

David watched with cold amusement and a sinking feeling in his chest. Yes, here was a werewolf. And she looked totally human.

And now they knew it was possible.

Crucially, nobody pulled Fleur out of the cage just yet. Not even the silver-armed Chasseurs that showed up to oggle her.

Instead, Imperial Guards showed up to pull David out of his cage, drag him back to where the stakes still filled the air with the smell of smoke. The guards didn’t give him time to stare at Bernadette’s burned corpse, still up there, dragging him onwards into the command tent. Still, the hate welled up inside him as he was pushed into a seat, a pistol once again trained on his head.

The tent was opulent—ridiculously so. It started with the size: Enough for a bed and a travelling wardrobe and a washbasin, a large table and chairs. All of it sitting on big carpets, layers of them. There was even a small shrine and the icons of a couple of saints. And the Roi Solei, of course.

The two marshalls—Allard and Soto, as David had learned—sat at the table. It had a map of Legrion on it, but right now, both of them appeared to be resting, focused on their wine glasses. Allard was the older one, but Soto, too, had at least twenty years on the prince. They barely looked up from their glasses while the Levant stomped up to David, staring down on him. The boy tried to stand tall, but his shoulders still hunched. David just stared down at the floor between his feet.

“That woman. You knew she’s a werewolf, didn’t you?” the prince demanded. “How many more are there?”

David pressed his teeth together.

“How many more?” the prince repeated. “And if they look human, how do we recognize them?”

David didn’t even glance at him.

Not that his silence helped much. Already, Lord deClare strode into the tent, bowing deeply. “Your Highness, marshalls. How may I be of help?”

“Lord deClare. It appears there is another werewolf hiding amongst the prisoners,” the prince stated, looking at the lord intently.

DeClare looked back, clearly waiting for more to come. The marshalls, too, were both watching now.

“Your Highness?” deClare ventured after a few seconds.

“You are unsurprised by this revelation,” the prince noted. “Yet you did not see it fit to inform us of this possibility.”

DeClare’s expression turned to bewilderment, and he glanced at David. Finally, he bowed deeply. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness. I do not know which possibility you are referring to.”

“But you know that not all werewolves look like werewolves. With the eyes and the hair,” Marshall Allard interjected.

The expression on deClare’s face when it finally dawned on him what they were asking was worth gold. David barely managed to suppress a laugh.

“I do know that, yes,” deClare said slowly. He visibly swallowed what else he wanted to say.

David bit his lips, grinning inwardly. Every child in Loegrion knew that. But deClare could hardly say so, could he? Not to the crown prince’s face.

“Still you did not see it fit to bring up.”

DeClare hesitated, and landed on flattery. “I believed it to be part of your plan,” he said. “It seemed to me a fitting punishment for the enemy, to let them be ripped to shreds rather than waste the silver of finding every single one of the monsters.”

“Sure you did,” David interrupted, to distract them from the bit about the silver. “You forgot, didn’t you? Every child in Loegrion knows this, and you forgot about it.”

“I met your brother, if you will recall,” deClare hissed at him. “How could I possibly forget how good some of these monsters are at hiding?”

David just grinned back at him.

“What else does every child in Loegrion know about werewolves?” Marshall Allard asked.

“Pardon?” deClare said.

“Clearly, we have not been told everything we should have been told,” the prince said. “So what else should we know about these monsters?”

“They—well, there’s rumours…but I’m hardly an expert…Perhaps it should be him—”

“He will be questioned later,” Allard interrupted him. “Start simple, man!”

“Simple, of course. Simple.” DeClare still struggled with the question, glancing at David as if he was worried he’d fail the examination. So David grinned at him, showing more teeth than necessary.

“Mithras have mercy,” Allard muttered. “Is it true that the curse can only be spread by a werewolf’s bite?”

“Yes,” deClare said. “Except—well, at least one of them has had—cubs, and they turned out monsters, too.”

“And they transform every full moon, for three days?” Allard went on.

David tried to school his face into an impassive expression as deClare looked nervously back and forth between the Valoise and him.

“I—believe so,” the lord finally said. “They are gripped by madness during those nights. But they can transform every other night, too, I heard. So they are no less dangerous then. They are hardly all the same, though.”

“So how do they differ?”

“Well…they appear to have very different abilities. I heard that not all of the monsters present at Oldstone Castle transformed on the new moon. I do not know why that was. Some of them appear to have magical abilities, too. He knows more, no doubt.”

David didn’t move.

“How do we spot them?” the prince asked. “Is there a way to spot them at all?”

“Silver, Your Highness. It’s the only sure way I know of. City guards will have silver covered sticks to touch to their skin. It’s said to burn them, but I have not seen it for myself.”

Thank—thank the full moon that deClare didn’t know much. David kept his face as impassive as he could. Unfortunately, deClare didn’t have anything totally wacky to say. Didn’t try to sell them that the sign of Mithras repelled them, or that alchemy stopped them from transforming, or anything like that. David wondered if he could feed them some bogus story, but then decided to keep his mouth shut.

Not that they were looking for his input any longer. Or even paying attention.

It wasn’t until the marshalls ran out of question that they turned back to David. “How does Your Highness wish to proceed with ‘Lord Relentless’?” Soto asked.

The prince clasped his hands behind his back. The attempt at gravitas made David grin.

So did the prince’s words: “We will follow Lord deClare’s suggestion. It will allow us to observe the monsters during the upcoming full moon, seeing how they are already locked up anyway. We shall be able to judge the truthfulness of Lord Feleke’s answers then. And if he does not wish to talk, the Inquisition will surely convince him.”

That was slightly less amusing. But still. He was looking forwards to deClare’s face when the werewolves didn’t transform tonight.

DeBurg and Pettau were waiting for him when when he was dragged back to the cell, hovering around the door looking worried. Fleur on the other hand ws curled up in a corner of her cage, trying to protect herself from the other inmates.

“Oh, Mithras’s flaming torcht,” David growled, straining against his guards. “Leave her alone, you morons! Nothing’s going to happen tonight, but god help you if you force her to turn!”

The pisscoats certainly weren’t impressed. He hit his kneecaps when they threw him into the cage, the door crashing shut behind him. Underlining his words, he hoped.

“Nothing is going to happen tonight?” deBurg asked.

David cursed and groaned, then managed a shrug. He was more interested in seeing how Fleur was doing. Alvin’s ghost slunk around and out the cage—checking in on Fleur, too?

“It’s full moon tonight, isn’t it?” Pettau asked.

David shrugged again. “Nothing will happen to the people in Fleur’s cage,” he said, loud enough that the frightened healers would hopefully hear him. “I’m not vouching for Port Neaf’s safety. Just—stay calm tonight.”

He had barely finished speaking when outside the camp, the howl started up again.

Great. That would calm everyone down.