Chapter 3

I fled west for four months.

The wolf pups did not leave me too weak to walk. Instead, they gave me strength no human should have possessed.

The price was that they were constantly draining my blood and body heat.

I ate twice as much food each day, yet my gums still bled. When the moon was full, the six children pulled at my bones from different directions all at once, and I could only bite down on a cloth strip to keep from screaming.

Agnes Mercer found me outside an abandoned monastery.

She had once been a Church midwife, dismissed thirty years ago for refusing to hand a half-blood infant over to the Silver Cross.

"I have delivered human babies and half-blood ones." Agnes felt my abdomen, and her expression darkened. "Six at once, though. That is a first even for me."

She forged an identity for me using a register of the dead.

I wanted to stay hidden until I gave birth.

The night before the blizzard hit, three Silver Cross tracking stakes appeared outside the monastery.

Agnes pulled one out. Blisters erupted across her palm. Gritting through the pain, she looked at me. "They found us."

My contractions started at that same moment.

The cellar had no doctor, no anesthetic, only an oil lamp and two buckets of freshly boiled water.

When the first pup slid out, I thought I was seeing things. Gray fur clung wet to her tiny body, four small paws curled against her belly, and her ears lay flat against her head. She did not cry like a human baby. She only gave one soft whimper. Then came the second, the third, and finally all six pups lay on the linen cloth.

I had lost too much blood. My vision was going dark.

I flinched back instinctively.

On the linen lay six wet little creatures.

The smallest crawled to my chest, her umbilical cord still attached, and pressed her warm nose over my heart. Her breathing was faint, but she nuzzled me again and again. I reached out and cradled her, finally understanding that these six small lives were waiting for me.

A crash came from outside.

Silver Cross patrol riders had entered the monastery.

Agnes set fire to the old wooden bolt on the bell tower, then turned to me. "Cut the cords and save the children. I will buy you half an hour."

"You will die."

Agnes pressed the scissors into my hand. "Thirty years ago, I gave a child to the Silver Cross. She did not survive the night." Another crash hit the door outside. She turned and braced herself against the cellar entrance. "This time I am not letting them in. Cut the cords. Take the children and go."

Then she left the cellar.

The next moment, the bell tower collapsed.

When the tower fell, I heard Agnes scream. I gripped the scissors and did not look back. She had bought me this half hour with her life. I could not waste a single second.

I cleared each child's nose and mouth, cut their cords, and tucked them one by one inside my clothes.

The weakest one stopped breathing.

I pressed two fingers to her tiny chest and breathed my own air into her.

She finally coughed up a little blood-tinged fluid.

"They call you evidence." I held six warm bundles of wolf pup against me. "But to me, you are simply my children."

Dawn light fell through the broken stained glass.

Six pups slowly began to transform in my arms.

Gray fur receded into skin, and paws became fingers, but the ears and tails remained.

Six babies opened their eyes at the same time.

I named them. The steadiest was Rowan. The one who always wrinkled her nose was Cora. The one with the strongest legs was Finn. The one who loved hiding in shadows was Maeve. The loudest was Jasper. And the smallest, the warmest, was Nell.

The patrol riders began digging through the collapsed bell tower.

I strapped Nell to my back, wrapped the other five in my skirt, and crawled out through the crypt beneath the altar.

The crypt was flooded with ice water. The wounds from giving birth bled with every step. I did not dare stop. The six children were pressed to my chest, and their breathing was the only strength that kept me crawling forward.

Hundreds of miles away, Lucian fished a moonstone fragment out of the river.

That same day, the Silver Cross handed him a death certificate.

A young woman carrying abnormal fetuses had fallen into the river and drowned.

Everyone urged him to stop searching.

He pressed the moonstone into his palm. From the cold fragment came seven faint pulses.

Lucian tossed the death certificate into the fire. "Keep looking. If she is dead, I want the body. If you cannot find one, then she is still alive."

He refused to close the case and ordered the Black Riders to trace purchases of midwifery supplies, goat milk, and newborn cloth across the western monasteries.