Page 5 of Rejected By the Winter Wolf

“I can do two to start, we don’t mind when guests extend. And normally check-in is later, but we have some clean rooms. Instead of charging you for last night, I’m just going to finagle it, okay? Start your two nights tonight. I just need a credit card.”

I can’t imagine anyone would be tracking that. Still, the first card that I pull out of my wallet is one I haven’t seen before. It has my name on it, though.

Another one of my mother’s messages? Or protections?

I slide it across the desk, and she runs it. After a pause, she lifts a key from a hook behind her. The number four is etched on the key’s tag. She returns my card but keeps the key.

“Let me show you to your room. It can be a little bit of a maze since it’s a converted mansion. The house doesn’t follow conventional numbering systems.” She smiles brightly and motions for me to follow her down a hall off the foyer.

We pass room six, then five. Turn. Three.

Then, finally, four.

“Breakfast is included,” she adds. “It’s, um, seven to nine every morning. You’re right on time.”

As if to remind me of my impending hunger, my stomach growls. It’s almost seven a.m., and suddenly, despite the nightmares I’m sure to have, breakfast sounds great.

“Thank you.”

I lock the door and drop my pack on the floor. The room is cute. White wallpaper with silver flowers. The queen bed has a white quilt, and the rug at the foot is pale blue. So are the curtains that flutter over the cracked windows.

To my left is a bathroom. I go in and stop short, staring at myself in the mirror. I look… normal. But normal is relative. The version of me who the girl at the front desk saw is disheveled. Hair a mess—there’s no hiding the leaves in my hair, my God—and dirt smeared across my cheekbone.

I unclasp the bracelet masking my features and set it down. There’s a slight tingle across my skin, and the black Mark slowly darkens as the charm’s illusion fades away. It draws my eye, and I press my finger into one of the jagged, tapered lines on my jaw. When it first came in, it was raised like an actual scar. It hurt as a fresh cut would, too.

Over the years, it’s settled into the semblance of a tattoo. My hair is the same, with bits of debris in it, but now visible is the gash on my arm. It soaked through the fabric I tied around it.

The silence presses in on me, and I still stifle my emotions. I’ve been operating on autopilot, fueled by adrenaline. I’m not safe, even if it appears that way now. I can’t afford to fall apart. I don’t know what happened at home. To my mother.

Part of me thinks I’d know if she died. If something terrible happened to her, I’d feel it.

Right?

I shrug off my bag and pull out the pouch of stones. I dump them out and take stock.

Mom gave me a set of powerful gemstones. Some seem to have been made and not used by her, but others are her personal ones. The amethyst around my neck is from her collection. I sense her magic in it differently than the others, and I can almost smell her scent with me. Lavender, with a hint of spice. A pang of regret hits me hard.

She’s all I have. And yet, I left her.

Her words come back to me, and I jolt. I need to write this down, or else I’ll forget. Mom’s words have always been important—and something has always been wrong with me, because after a while, they’ll slip out of my mind like sand blowing across the desert.

There’s a pad of paper and pen on the nightstand, and I sit heavily on the edge of the bed. Best to write it down now, while the memory burns behind my eyelids.

I write them down and set it aside, returning to the bathroom. Before anything, I need to clean myself up.

With a deep sigh, I untie my bloody shirt and lean down to clean my arm in the sink. Once the dirt and debris have washed away, I pluck one of the stones from the pouch and close it in my fist. Its warmth envelops me, sliding under my skin. A healing stone. My skin knits together and seals closed. My forearm itches unbearably, but I force myself to ignore it. Soon, all that’s left on my arm is a pink scar.

I set the stone aside. It still has magic in it—it would probably heal one more wound. Maybe.

I leave everything in the bathroom and return to the bed. I grab the paper and scan the words I scribbled.

Her cryptic visions aren’t new. In fact, I grew up trying to decipher them. She could predict a spring storm, for example. Easy things like that. Others never made any sense. Some made sense after a long time. As a child, I had a desk drawer filled with scraps of paper that contained quotes from her.

And then there are the visions she never told me about. The ones that may have shifted the future too much for another person to see.

Those are the ones I truly fear.

They’re coming, she had said. They want a Seer. He wants to break the curse. Help him and he’ll help you.