She curled her lip. “Good point.”
I shoved my free hand in the pocket of my jacket, the other still wrapped around Peter’s warm hand. Daisy stretched her neck out and gingerly sniffed the burlap sack. A muffled squawk sounded, and the heron thrashed again. Daisy ducked her head and backed up, growling.
Ugh. This guy smells weird—like cologne and bird poop.
I watched her a moment. The cologne had to be Ludolf’s smell, but the bird droppings must be from his heron form. I suddenly had a thought.
I looked Daisy’s way and woofed. Do shifters smell different than other animals to you?
She cocked her head, her pointy ears pricked. She let out a slow groan. Yes… now that I think about it. If they’ve shifted fairly recently, they still have some human smell on them.
I looked behind me toward the gate, then back at Daisy. How recently?
She shot me a flat look and huffed. I don’t know—in case you’re wondering, yes, you do still reek of owl droppings occasionally.
I glanced over at Francis the vampire, hovering beside her with Ludolf in the sack. He’d smelled it on me, and I hadn’t shifted in years.
I barked at Daisy. Could you try to sniff out a snake shifter smell? I then turned to Francis. “Do you think you could sniff out your friend Sam if he’d been by here recently? Like in the last day or so?”
He considered it a moment, narrowing his dark eyes, which he’d lined in black makeup. “Yes. I think so.” His voice came out low and drawling.
I turned back to Daisy and barked, my excitement building. Let’s go back to the gate, where Sam Snakeman was attacked. See if you can catch the scent of snake and track it.
I turned to the vampire and barked at him.
He recoiled and curled his lip at me.
I shook my head. “Sorry, just got a little excited there. Daisy thinks she can sniff out the scent of snake. I think if you can try to smell out Sam and I check with animal witnesses along the way, we should be able to find your missing friend.”
The princess blew out a breath. “Oh, that’d be such a relief. We’re all so worried about him.”
Peter bit his lip and looked toward the jail. “Should this wait until after we’ve booked Ludolf?”
Horace curled his full lips into a sneer. “Don’t worry. Mr. Caterwaul here can writhe in that sack for a bit longer.” His expression darkened. “He’s not going anywhere.”
The princess’s eyes grew round as we turned and headed back toward the gate. “Snakes. You really don’t like this guy, huh? What’s your history with him?”
Horace’s gaze grew faraway, a cruel curl to his lips.
Iggy scoffed. “Look who you’re talking to, lady! Again—do you really want to know?!”
Pink spots burned on the princess’s cheeks, and she gave a sheepish grin. She turned to Horace. “Never mind.”
The guards let us back out, and Daisy zigzagged across the cobblestones, nose to the ground, huffing and sniffing with impressive focus. I’d bet I could have held a handful of bacon in front of her head and she wouldn’t even have looked up.
Similarly, Francis tipped forward so that he hovered horizontally, his shoulder-length black hair hanging forward over his shoulders. He zoomed about beside Daisy, hooked nose only a few inches above the ground.
The guards at the gate shot each other wide-eyed looks but didn’t say anything.
Francis and Daisy seemed to be of the same mind—soon, they turned back inside the gate and followed a meandering path toward the tree line.
I let out a bark. You’ve caught Sam’s trail, Daisy?
She didn’t even look up, her wet black nose twitching. She let out a quick woof. Stop blabbering and let me concentrate.
I turned to the others and nodded, encouraged. “I think she smells snake.”
Iggy shot his fiery head out of the lantern and gasped out, “That’s what she said!”
“Iggy!” The princess clapped the shutters on the lantern closed, muffling the flame’s mischievous cackling, then shot me an apologetic smile.
Francis, still hovering horizontally in a partly hilarious, partly unnerving way, glanced back at us. “I’m also picking up smells of Sam—cinnamon, fear, and a hint of lisp.”
The princess frowned. “You can smell his lisp?”
The vampire rolled his eyes and spoke in his deep drawl. “You’re too gullible.”
The princess just shook her head at him as Prince Harry took her free hand in his. We entered the tree line and moved deeper into the dark forest. Peter lit his wand, and the princess opened Iggy’s lantern again to give us light to see by.
The princess’s face suddenly lit up, and she turned to her husband. “The forest—of course! I think this is where Sam grew up. It’s where I found him during the competition last year.”
The prince nodded thoughtfully. “That makes sense. I’m sure Sam was frightened—he’d want to go somewhere familiar and comforting.”
Pine needles crunched under our feet, and the foliage overhead crowded out what little light the moon cast. We climbed over fallen logs and pushed aside huge ferns as we moved deeper and deeper into the royal forest. Crickets chirped, mostly chatting about the weather, and an owl hooted somewhere nearby, talking to itself.
Not many mice out tonight, hmph. I’m hungry.
An owl. Would the royal healers soon have a cure for my own curse? I glanced toward the sky, the leaves mostly blocking it. Oh, to soar again. I shook it off—time to focus, Jolene. I kept my ears pricked for any hissing.
Soon, Daisy and Francis stopped moving forward and began to circle a little clearing with a dense cluster of bushes and grasses.
“I believe he’s somewhere nearby—his scent is strong here.”
The princess folded her arms and shot the vampire an arch look. “Oh, yeah? His smell is extra lispy?”
Peter fought a chuckle by coughing into his fist.
Daisy snuffled and huffed, nose to the ground, making sharp turns and doubling back. She let out a low whine.
