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Flat to the wood, ears back, dead silent, and in six months I’ve never once seen this cat afraid.

Wolf.

"I know."

The fourth ward closes. The fifth. My wards, Lantern-set, six months solid, going out around my house one after another like someone walking the fence line with a candle snuffer.

They stop.

The last one holds, the one across the front step, humming under my feet.

Quiet.

My wolf rises up under my skin, hackles first, because whatever's out there is close enough now that I can smell it through the glass. Smoke. Rot. Burned rosemary.

And under it, faint and wrong and familiar, a scent I recognize from being in Maren's kitchen.

Then the knocking starts. Three taps. Polite. Patient. The way a friend knocks.

I'm already moving for the front door when I understand that I'm hearing it wrong.

It isn't the front door.

It's the guest room window, where Maren is.

18

MAREN

SEVEN DAYS UNTIL HALLOWEEN

Someone knocks on my window.

Three times. Polite. The way you knock when you're dropping off a casserole.

I'm on the second floor.

I don't move. I lie there under my grandmother's quilt with my cheek on a pillow that smells like cedar and woodsmoke, and I wait for my body to admit it made that up.

Knock. Knock. Knock.

Same rhythm. Same patience.

Sid is on the windowsill.

He isn't hissing. That's what gets me out of the bed. In six days I've watched that cat hiss at a mirror, a necklace, and my best friend. Now he's flat to the sill with his ears pinned back and his tail wound tight against his body, and he isn't making any sound at all.

The glass is white with frost.

On the inside.

"Maren, honey."

I know that voice. Soft. Warm. Slightly amused, like she caught me sneaking cookies before dinner. It came through my back door four days ago and said found you, and I've heard it in every quiet room since.

My feet hit the floor. I don't remember deciding to stand.

"Don't be rude, sweetheart. Come say hello."