A heavy iron chain thick as his wrist lay across the bricks of the hearth, one end welded through the iron ring pounded into the stone, the other end connected to a wide leather collar.
Cedar knew the chain and collar were unbreakable. He had fashioned both with his own hands.
He turned away from the door and paced in front of the fireplace, careful not to disturb the chain at his feet.
The missing Gregor boy weighed heavy on his mind. There was little information he could rely on. Grieving parents could conjure any sort of story to explain how their child had gone to death—wolf, wandering, or even the bogeyman come stealing in the night.
If the boy had been taken by beast, there would be no hope he was still alive. If the child wandered off, there could still be time to find him. And if it was the bogeyman or some Strange thing that put hands on that small a boy and stole him away . . .
Cedar rubbed his hand over his face. If it was a thing of the Strange, he hoped the child was lucky enough to receive a quick death.
He stopped pacing and took up a cup from above the fireplace in front of the small mirror there. He swallowed the last cold dregs of coffee. He hated the chain, hated the collar. And hated that he’d have to wait out the moonrise to begin his hunt for the boy.
Cedar placed the empty cup on the mantel next to his brother’s pocket watch, then crouched in front of the chain, taking it up in his hands. The call of moonlight in the air burned like whiskey in his blood. He knew just how long he could resist the change. Had spent four years tied to the moon, ever since he’d hunted the red wolf Bloodpaw in Pawnee country, and instead caught the attention of the Pawnee gods.
There was no time left for memories, no time left for bucking fate. He was losing control. Even now, his hands stretched wide, his joints and bones loosened for the change. A haze of luxurious pleasure clouded his eyes and mind like opium, promising unearthly pleasures.
It was a lie. He knew what would happen after the change. The beast inside him would be free. He would kill. And he would not remember any of it until he woke in the morn.
Cedar bent his head and, with clumsy fingers, fastened the collar around his neck.
He stood and stared at his reflection in the small mirror there.
Still a man’s face, strong nose, hard jaw, his skin tanned with something more than pure European heritage. His eyes were his own, hazel, with long lashes, above them dark brows and waves of thick walnut hair. Lines at the edges of his eyes hinted of past laughter, while other lines, at his mouth and forehead, mapped his sorrow. Clean- shaven, he was not a plain man, nor an old man, nor an unhandsome man.
He was, however, a cursed man.
The moon rose, inching higher, pushing his heartbeat to quicken. Fast. Faster.
One single silver ray poured through the shutter. Cedar moaned, not from pain, but from pleasure and sin, as his body twisted, stretched, changed. He clung to humanity, clung to the mind of a man, as long as he could.
But moonlight loosed a flood of quicksilver heat through him and dragged him down with the weight of an ocean. He drowned in moonlight, drowned in the need for blood, flesh, death. He threw his head back and yelled as his humanity shattered. The only sound that escaped his throat was a blood-hungry howl.
The first finger of moonlight slipped like a serpent’s tongue through the canopy of trees. Shard LeFel smiled.
“This is your end, Mr. Lindson,” LeFel said. “Your third and last death by my hand. They say a man can kill another man only three times in this world. Therefore I have gone through considerable measures to see that you stay dead.”
LeFel slid his fingers into his coat pocket. He withdrew a palm-sized silver box and a tiny wrought iron key. The silver box was fine lacework. Held just so, it seemed as if the lace fashioned the box into a tree: thicker silver lines creating the trunk at the base, and thin, beautiful arcs of silver reaching out in branches, leaves, and crown that wove together to make the cage whole.
Within the box was a tiny clockwork dragonfly, gold and crystal wings thin as paper, glinting like dying sunlight as they fluttered beneath the cage that held them. The unearthly green light of pure glim—the rarest of all things—shone out from the dragonfly’s body, blending with the sunlight-flecked wings.
“This trinket is worth more money than you have ever known, Mr. Lindson. Kings, emperors, a history worth of conquerors, have fought for this treasure, have torn kingdoms and civilizations down to splinters and dust to possess it.
“Rare . . .” LeFel’s voice, for just that moment, lost its anger and hatred. For just that moment, his voice was a thing of unearthly beauty, clear and full of song. The animals in the night paused at the sound, and even the trees bent to be nearer him.
Mr. Shunt moaned softly, and LeFel seemed to remember himself.
“I think it a shame, really,” he said with cold disinterest, all the song gone from his words. “A shame that it will be wasted on a scrap of meat such as yourself.”
LeFel held the box by its corners, pinched between the black silk fingertips of his gloves.
“This treasure will be the last thing you will ever feel, Mr. Lindson.
LeFel slammed his foot into the bucket, kicking it free from beneath Jeb. The rope groaned beneath the man’s full weight.
Jeb Lindson’s swollen lips mouthed one word, even though no sound came out:
LeFel turned away from him and stepped over to the child. “Such a dream, little maker,” he cooed. “Such a strange and wonderful dream you see.” He knelt and picked up the child’s hand. “Can you catch the moonlight, little dreamer?”
The boy did not respond. LeFel had not expected he would. He didn’t need his response. He needed his blood.
LeFel held the boy’s hand toward Mr. Shunt.
“Mr. Shunt, if you please.”
Mr. Shunt extended one long knobby finger, the tip of which ended in a silver needle. He pricked the boy’s thumb.
The boy did not even flinch, but the wolf growled. LeFel met the wolf’s copper brown gaze with his own. “You will play your part, my pet. But not now.”
Then, to the child: “Just a bit of blood and shred of dream, little maker,” he said. “That and moonlight is all I need this night.”
LeFel pressed the boy’s thumb against the silver box until one thick drop of blood fell upon the dragonfly, turning it slick and dark as rubies.
“Such a beautiful child.” LeFel rose to stand in front of the boy. “And so useful.” He held the box over his shoulder. “Mr. Shunt, your service.”
Mr. Shunt stirred free of the shadows and lifted the box from LeFel’s fingers. He crossed the short distance to the hanging man, coats of silk and wool licking his steps.
Then he stretched his arm out to touch Jeb Lindson.
Mr. Shunt’s overly long, knob-knuckled fingers suddenly bristled with delicate tools, things meant for cutting, for hooking, for binding. He made quick work of tearing apart the last of Jeb’s coat and shirt, digging a hole through the cloth to the skin beneath.
He took his time fastening the box into Jeb’s flesh, savoring the dying man’s gasps of pain, batting away his feeble swings.
Once satisfied with his work, he stepped back.
LeFel turned to face Jeb. He removed his own glove, and tipped his bare palm upward, catching moonlight. He closed his fist, pressed his lips against the knot his thumb and forefinger created, and whispered to the moonlight.
A spell. Not of the magic of this world. A Strange spell. Poison from a Strange man’s lips. LeFel released the spell, blowing the captured moonlight like a kiss across his hand toward the man who was still not dead enough.
Moonlight poured into the tiny box in Jeb’s chest, catching like dewdrops on a spider’s web. The ruby
