Page 29 of Raven in Midwinter

“It’s me,” Wolf Giles insisted, his teeth chattering loudly, a bluish tint to his skin.

The first Giles didn’t look quite as cold, but the same level of terrified. “I am Giles Corey, can’t you tell? Come touch my face. You’ll know then.”

“No!” Wolf Giles shrieked. “I’m the one. Ask him how I knew that if I bit you, you wouldn’t change into a wolf.”

“Clearly, you’re already a shapeshifter,” the first Giles said to me. “Of course you can’t be changed into something else.”

“No. That’s wrong,” Wolf Giles said. “Because yes, you can shift into a flock of ravens, but not because there’s a curse on you.”

“Obviously it’s not a curse,” the first Giles said. “The power comes from the Corey line.”

“He’s merely repeating. He doesn’t really know,” Wolf Giles heaved out the words, then began to cry. “You have to believe me. I’m Giles Corey.”

“Xander, it’s me. You know you hate me. Everyone in the family hates me. And think about this now. How could a powerful hedge-rider ever become a wolf? Is that even possible?”

He had a point. Maybe.

Wolf Giles appeared utterly bereft, and without any covering—he was naked in the ground after the shift—he’d be dead soon. “Believe me,” he barely managed to get out.

Calling on the elements again, I removed the snow near me, then sank into softened earth. Shoving my hands in deep, nearly to my elbows, I called on Corvus.

Sleep.

Please let me⁠—

Sleep.

Leaning back, I sighed deeply. The land was tired. And it was impossible to know if it was truly done—because, again, this was midwinter—or if the spell covering Corvus made it not mine to reach. My grandmother had advised me to dig deep, but I’d been underground and still couldn’t get the land to respond to me.

“Well?” Lorne asked.

“Unless it’s life and death…”

“Which it just was,” he said roughly, still recovering from seeing me hurt.

“Which it just was,” I agreed. “Yes. The land is supposed to be sleeping.”

He nodded. “Okay, then, axe it is.”

Both men shrieked in terror, as I would have as well. And then it hit me. “Oh!” I gasped, my eyes on Lorne. “Did you see Argos inside?”

“No, I—I dunno. I don’t remember.”

“Well, go back to the house and call him and see. It’s cold, and he hates to be away from the fire in the winter.”

“You want me to bring the cat?”

“Yes, I do,” I told him, not reminding him that Argos was actually a daemon.

Lorne was so much faster than me in the snow. He was built bigger to begin with, all the power and muscle, and was moving in seconds.

“I’ll be dead before you get this sorted,” Wolf Giles whimpered.

“Well, maybe if you weren’t such a prick, your family, meaning me, would be happy to see you, and none of this would be necessary because my magic would intuitively know yours.”

“I will kill you.”

That was bravado talking. We both knew he was good and caught by the earth. “Why did you bite me?”