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She smiled. “This is the part where we need your help, Macy.”
“What?” I carefully applied weight to my feet, feeling the familiar tingle of sleepy limbs. After testing whether or not I could stand, I smoothed my hands down my shirt and checked my belt for my weapons.
“Can you shift and use your nose?” Juriah asked. “I can hold your things.”
I tapped the tip of my nose. “I should be able to track in this form. I just need to know what I’m looking for.”
“Your old pack,” Galanthia replied. “Can you pick up their scent from here and see where they might have gone?”
I shrank back from the building, from the two Elderlings who were on my side. They wanted me to go after Baneridgeon purpose. They could have handed me a cloth with Izdor’s scent. They could have told me what Etta smelled like instead. But no, they wanted me to use my horrid memories for this task.
Juriah rubbed the space between my shoulder blades. Within seconds, the nausea dissipated, and the anger returned to the murky depths of my soul.
I looked up at him. “I’m doing this to find your friends.”
“They’re your friends too, little wolf,” he said. “I appreciate it.Weappreciate it.”
Galanthia tilted her head to the sky. After a second, she turned to us and reported, “Raven has a wide circle on us with her group.”
“How many wolves again?” I asked. “Just so I know what to discern from the rest.”
“Five.”
I nodded while studying the building, trying to find that weird maze of a hallway in the rubble, trying to figure out how such a short amount of time could feel like an eternity. Two weeks ago, my fate would have been sealed if Juriah hadn’t stepped up to the plate and won that bid. I would have been long gone with someone else.
I didn’t even want to try imagining what would have happened if he hadn’t intervened. Sex slave, servant, breeder, furniture—fate would have thrown something my way. It wouldn’t have been pretty. And I probably wouldn’t have survived it.
I had barely survived Baneridge.
“Take your time, little wolf,” Juriah reassured me. “Don’t rush your nose.”
I smiled crookedly. “Time is of the essence. We need to move quickly.”
“While I agree with that, I support your process.”
“Who talks like that?”
Galanthia chuckled so low that it sounded like a phone vibrating. Juriah shot her a hard glance that influenced her expression, turning her from chuckling to serious in half a second. Elderlings were interesting people. I wanted to find out more about them. I wanted to hear whatever stories Juriah felt like sharing.
Hopefully, that would include the story of how he’d formed his ridiculous hero complex.
But I could be patient.Sometimes.
I swallowed hard as I walked toward the building. Bricks and chunks of cement grew in piles the closer I got to the original structure. I could see some of the main bar area where broken bottles decorated the old tile. Nothing looked the same. I mean, that made sense considering the whole place had been under one giant spell.
My nose twitched. Whiskey came to mind. Percy never wore cologne or anything like that, but he liked his whiskey, and it usually stunk from his pores the next day if he had too much. It became a good way to recognize whether or not he was approaching the tiny shed that had doubled as my home back in the day.
That wasn’t too long ago, I thought.Time is weird.
The scent sharpened to my right. I turned toward the parking lot, listening to the sound of the old fence posts clattering in the wind. I wandered toward that side of the street as the treeswhooshedtogether, creating a gentle sound as their leaves shimmied.
My brows knotted as I squinted at a pathway between two trunks. “I think they might have gone in that direction.”
“You think?” Galanthia questioned.
But I didn’t have time to respond as Juriah took my hand and pulled me toward the path. “Don’t second-guess yourself, little wolf. Honor your gut.”
“My gut wants a cheeseburger.”
