2

After rinsing the clothes, it was time to hang them to dry. The den was several years old, and the dirt stairs leading up easily held my weight and that of my damp clothes as I ascended. I spread my clothes out on the clothesline beneath a large Douglas fir. By nightfall, they would be dry, even if it rained. I didn’t have to worry about anyone stealing my things—nothing in my den was worthy of theft.

It was late afternoon by the time I was done, the sun sinking toward the horizon. Time for me to head to the sacred lands to do my second job.

I finished my can of peaches and drank the juice down. The empty can would get me a couple of cents from the vendors who repurposed the aluminum, so I washed it out and left it by the other cans.

With my stomach full enough, I headed off to the sacred lands. These lands were surrounded by coniferous trees and wildlife, which were always a bit of a pain for me to get through. If I could shift, I would be able to dodge and weave between the trees and leap over the boulders and fallen logs, but I had to take a slower path—one that had been worn by other bipedal travelers.

My destination was the statue of the goddess Holo, a couple of miles out of Den City, where I lived and worked. The wolf population became more and more sparse as I neared the sacred lands, which wasn’t surprising. Out of deference, wolves avoided the lands unless they wanted to visit the statue. The only life around were the pix folk flying back and forth. Pix were not shifters, but very small people with butterfly wings who lived in small villages. Pix were a little mischievous and usually kept their friendships within their species. As I said, they were small—the tallest one I’d seen was maybe seven inches. Their size meant they were prey to snakes, foxes, and feral wolves.

Pix were naturally and understandably distrusting of larger species. For that reason, they lived all over the sacred lands. They worshipped the same gods as shifters but didn’t share the same level of fear for the land that wolves had. I expected to see a lot more of them flitting around as I walked, but they were as scarce as wolf shifters today. This confused me until I saw the hunched silhouette limping toward me.

Kestrel, the dark witch. I had only seen her a handful of times in the five years since I fled to Den City, but whenever she was around, the pix were nowhere to be seen. The witch was carrying an old tote bag, which told me she was probably on her way to the middle market in Den City. She was all of four feet tall, and her loose clothing made it impossible to tell how large or thin she was. Her tanned, wrinkled skin made her look at least a hundred years old, but her dark eyes were watchful and intelligent.

As we passed each other, our eyes met. It lasted only half a second, but I had to stifle a shiver.

Kestrel was probably the only person on Isle Royale more hated than me, but she was known to work mysterious magics and knew a lot of spells that could solve problems. So, unlike me, she had use and value on the island. The most I could offer people was an extra set of hands to complete odd jobs around Den City.

Wolves and pix were superstitious, but I’d learned the hard way that the gods, if they existed at all, didn’t care much about us. Even Holo, goddess of the night and favored among shifters, seemed to have turned her back on us. Though I didn’t believe in magic or rituals, I decided to take a page from the pix who believed Kestrel was evil and gave her as wide a berth as possible.

I’d made it a mile and a half to the sacred lands when I saw something glitter from the corner of my eye. I turned but saw only pine trees.

“Boo!” the voice boomed in my right ear, and I yelped, clapping a hand over it. A familiar pix floated there, doubled over, laughing with her hands on her stomach.

“Eleanor,” I growled. “You know I hate when you do that.”

“Sorry, Phae. You looked so serious, I couldn’t help it.” She wiped a tear from her eye and flew on gossamer aquamarine wings close to my face. She had short, ocean-blue hair, and was all of four inches tall.

“As soon as my ear stops ringing, I’ll get you back.”

She smirked. “Uh-huh, sure.”

It was impossible for me to stay annoyed with her, especially when she sat on my shoulder and her butterfly wings brushed gently across my cheek. Few people got to experience the lovely sensation. I felt lucky to have a friend as novel and wonderful and empathetic as Eleanor.

“So, what’s wrong?”

“Oh, nothing.” I sighed. “I just had a shitty day, but what else is new?”

El gently patted my cheek. “I’m sorry, Phae. But at least you’re close to getting out of here, right? Only another year, right?”

“Actually, it might only be a few more months.”

Her eyebrows raised. “Really? That soon?”

The fact that I was so close made me smile. “Yes, really. As long as things keep going well, I’ll be able to afford to pay off my loyalty contract and then take the next ferry out of here.”

“I guess this ‘second gig’ of yours really has paid off.” She put air quotes around the term. “Seriously, though, I can’t believe you’ve gotten away with this for so long. You’d think wolves would be more skeptical of a statue suddenly talking to them.”

I snickered. About three years ago, I started hiding inside the statue of a goddess and listening to people’s problems and giving advice. Yes, I was pretending to be Holo herself—something I was sure could get me killed if anyone had found out—but so far, no one had suspected anything.

Scraping and scrimping as much money as I could had been hard the past five years, but my savings were nearing the five-thousand-dollar mark. That was enough to pay off the loyalty contract and buy a ticket for the ferry. My contract was owned by the Wilcox pack, and the alpha, Edgar Salcedo, was the only one who could accept my payment and release me. If I didn’t pay it off, I could be subject to fines or prison time if they tracked me down, so it was best to pay it off.