Crew didn't get a head start on the hunt for the princess' pelt because she fell asleep and dreamed through the ever present, pungent aroma of Dev's bandaged wound. Just kidding. Crew gaslit us into believing she fell asleep.

She did, in fact, get a head start to avoid staying in the room with Dev one second longer. Upon exit, her nose immediately lured near the infirmary, which was also a terrible idea.

Her nose also took her to the mildewy depths of the barrack's washroom, which she divulged in lest she continue poking around the establishment smelling vaguely like a fish.

She maneuvered around the gathering spaces where a few of the soldiers off duty were drinking and playing games. Upon further inspection, Crew identified the game as grimroid—so Odranic of them.

"Hey," someone said from behind.

Crew startled. She hadn't heard a pulse, much less footsteps. A quick scan confirmed that this soldier was wearing fabric slippers and didn't have a beating heart.

She should have expected to cross more vampires now that they were nearing Inveralwyn—she just didn't expect the barracks to be accepting them. Or rather, socializing with them.

"Do you play?" he asked, gesturing to the room. Talking and given away her position and now the soldiers were whispering about her. Evidently, the entire barrack knew that there was a super smoking hot vampire chick wandering the premises now.

"What, their stupid drinking bet?" she said as she knew he overheard that anyone who saw her out at night needed to take a shot of gin.

The bounty hunter grinned. "No, grimroid. You could join us."

Crew pursed her lips, arms crossing. He was unexpectedly confident for someone dressed like her grandmother shuffling about in a robe and slippers. "Not my cup of blood," she admitted.

"Are you from Inveralwyn?"

At the risk of saying, "What's it to ya?" Crew said, "What's it to ya?"

He shrugged. "Just making conversation. I wasn't expecting to see other bounty hunters before I left."

Crew nudged her boot against one of the stone pillars, scowling down at the ground. He seemed to be prodding her to ask questions about him so he'd have an excuse to ask her, which was not something she was keen to do. The Emperor liked her because she was discrete enough to know when not to give herself away. Dev was smart enough to know just by the look of her, though.

This vampire, however, was not that informed.

"Well, I'm leaving now," she said, and started off. Of course he followed her.

"My name is Scott."

"Weird name."

"Thanks, my parents gave me it."

Crew gave a noncommittal eyebrow-raise. He threaded a hand through the longish ends of his hair. He sighed—which Crew knew from experience was for dramatic effect more than it was for anything else. A habit she herself picked up when she left Inveralwyn.

"Look, I'm just going to come right out and say it."

"Please, by all means. I can't stop you."

"You were the one selected to collect Devesh Cormaic, weren't you?" he said.

The one. Crew could have laughed. In some ways, she was always The One to the Emperor for any mark that mattered dearly to him (usually involving personal vendettas). Granted, she'd only been trusted by him for going on five years now—just a blink in time to her ancestors. Maybe even this alleged "Scott".

It suggested, though, that a silly little rumor had it that there was a bounty on Dev's head, but no one knew for certain. Because Dev was marked for a specific hunter, hand-picked by the Emperor.

"See, this is why I walked away," she said.

"And it's why the soldiers aren't all that concerned about you wandering around," he said. Though she had picked up her pace, he was now pedaling backwards, hands in the front pockets of his robes. "Do you really think Cormaic can find the beast?"

She could have started a heinous rumor right then and there. The whole north could start to believe that the princess was secretly a werewolf.

Instead, Crew said, "That says they're concerned about Cormaic wandering. What do you know about the black wolf?"

"Ah, the Black Sheep as they call it. Small as a kid wolf," he corrected. He scrubbed at his shadowy beard and admitted, "It does seem fishy, doesn't it?"

"Have you seen it's body?"

"No, I haven't." He braced his hands on his hips. "You looking for it, then?"

"Only if you're offering to tell me where," she said. They had stopped at a crossroads, staring at each other. Menacingly.

With no one else about, Crew dipped her voice. A little more sly. "Don't tell me you're one of them now. You don't really care what this keep earns from the Empire if the Black Sheep's really here."

"I don't, no," he agreed. "They have an impressive library, though. And I do so love reading."

It was then that she noticed one of his robe pockets was suspiciously rectangular. She lurched for it, startling him enough to give up the singular book he kept there. She turned the leather-bound cover over and flipped to the title page.

"Romance, eh?" she said.

He leant in with a devious smile. "A whole section dedicated to it."

"Not bad indeed," she hummed. She snapped the cover closed and slapped it onto his chest. Books were hard to come by, as printing wasn't exactly an optimal or efficient task. Most books Crew encountered were well-worn and had seen multiple households.

To have a library was an impressive feat.

"You know, the late Princess Morrow commissioned exclusive works at the palace," she said. "I hear a few were romantic in nature."

A traveling reader like Scott would surely have need for fresh works. Just as Crew suspected, his eyes widened a fraction.

"Oh? Do tell."

"I would, but I'm not much of a reader. Zoyla knows more than I do—alas. I don't think she'll be able to get access to them again unless she comes back with the wolf..." Crew sighed forlornly. Once again, effort.

Scott dragged a finger up and down the spine of his book, considering. "Fine," he said at last. "I'll help. The General is probably keeping it close."

"Oh, goodie," she teased, and off they went.

_______

By morning, Crew and Scott's search was still ongoing and Dev was painfully awake despite her best attempts. She felt refreshed, though, after days and nights of nocturnal turmoil.

The princess could still be alive.

The princess could still be alive!

Allegedly.

With Crew nowhere in sight and Zoyla still sleeping, Dev stepped out of the room where she was immediately confronted with a hallway too populated to sneak undetected through.

After a moment's hesitation, she eased the door shut behind her as the guard from the previous night approached.

"Sleep well?" he asked.

"After a week sleeping on the ground, it's hard not to sleep well on a bed," she confessed. "My friend isn't awake yet, but I'd like to wait for her before going to the kitchen."

"Understood."

"Would any of your comrades be available to share their stories from the full moon?" she asked, and after a reluctant pause, he complied.

She spent the morning listening to the tale of each of the three wolves whose pelts she'd seen. Suspiciously, there were no mentions of the black wolf, and when asked, Dev gleaned through offhanded comments that it was likely an order meant to keep nonessential people ignorant. Half of them likely didn't know the story themselves.

For as tightly wrapped as this tale was, Dev was even more determined to unravel it.

You're all a bunch of liars, she thought to herself at every knowingly distrustful look the guards and soldiers sent her from afar. Devesh Odrasi was nothing more than a mouse to them, looking to scavenge upon their rightful earnings.

"I'd like to inspect the casualties," she said at last, around the time Zoyla was waking up, and around the time Crew and Scott reconvened in the central courtyard, shrouded in the shadows of their large-brimmed caps.

If Dev would only turn just so, she might see Scott as he said, "I just saw the General and a military investigator leave a locked room."

But up in barracks, shrouded in a patchwork of shadows from the wrought iron windowpane, the guard said, "I believe that's above your pay grade. We've been hospitable thus far out of respect for your history, but frankly, you aren't in the military anymore."

Dev's fists threatened to clench at her sides. Instead, she gripped her belt where her holsters used to live back at the palace. "I'm sure the injured have just an interesting a tale, don't you?"

"None for you to hear," he said.

"The way I see it, you're clearly trying to keep me from—"

"What, doing your job?" The haughty scoff that followed crinkled the edges of Dev's integrity. "I'm afraid you don't have one of those anymore. Please, don't overstay your welcome here."

As he walked off, Dev bit down on her tongue to stop herself from blowing a raspberry at him. She felt childish for wanting to retaliate, but professionalism won over. She turned on her heels and marched back to the room where Zoyla was sorting through one of the bags.

"Oh, you're back," Zoyla said. "Did you find anything?"

"No, and I'm not allowed near the infirmary. Have you seen Crew?"

Just then, a rush of air buffeted the door into the back of Dev's already-blistered ankles. She staggered, stumbled, and made way for Crew sliding in with a complete stranger to Dev and Zoyla, but a somewhat familiar face to us: Scott.

"I, uh, have some news," Crew said, and relayed that just five minutes prior she and Scott had assembled in front of the mysterious door the Eastern Keep's general kept locked.

When they'd arrived, Crew had no reservations when faced with a locked door. Just as Scott suggested picking the lock, Crew slammed her fist down on the doorknob, cracking the mechanism inside. She wrenched the metal bolt out from the hole and barged in.

"Okay then," Scott said, and followed after her.

The room was dark all except for a gleam catching on a beam of sunlight near the edge of the curtain. Neither of them needed light to see what it was, but it did illuminate the color. Gold—a gilded cage fit for an oversized dog.

"Shit," Crew swore, taking a startled step back. A dull gleam fractured across coarse black fur, dark as the shadows closing in across the room as the door shut at their backs.

The beast was perfectly still, all except for the deeply sodden, slow inhale it took in time with a dull pulse. It carried to Crew and Scott's sensitive ears.

A heartbeat.

"She's alive?" Zoyla repeated, alarmed. She glanced at Scott. "And what is he doing here?"

"This is Scott," Crew said.

"Hi," Scott said.

"Anyway," Crew went on, clapping her hands together like she was trying to catch the attention of a child instead of two grown adults. "Good news: yes, our wolf is alive."

"It wasn't just her pelt?" Dev said as Zoyla paced away, hands to her hair.

"That's not what I said," Crew said. "They captured her. Alive. She's in a gilded cage—still a wolf but definitely scraggly, as you described. Malnourished. That sort of thing."

"I don't believe you," Dev said, and Zoyla smacked her in the arm for it.

"You haven't believed anything since we got to this place," she chastised. She turned to Crew and Scott and said, "Can we release her?"

"In the middle of the keep? No. No, definitely not," Scott said through a nervous laugh when all three women glared at him. "I mean, you could. But it'd be idiotic and I might have to question your sanity."

"What would you recommend then?" Dev said.

"The easiest solution would be to kill it and skin it. Easier to smuggle the pelt that way," he said.

"Killing the wolf is out of the question," Crew said at the exact moment Zoyla shrieked, "Are you mad?!"

He put his hands up in surrender, saying, "Either way, the door's broken, and someone's bound to question whether or not the Empire's traitor did it. Which means I'm going to leave before lockdown."

"Good," Zoyla spat, shooing him off. As he left, Zoyla slammed the door behind him and said, "Good riddance! Where did you even find that guy?"

"My tingly vampire senses," Crew said with a waggle of her gloved fingers. "Now I've got an idea, and you two aren't going to like it."

Dev squinted at her. She couldn't see any way around this that didn't involve being locked up in the end, the princess dead, and the rest of Dev's meager reputation in the gutter.

"We can't kill people," she said.

Crew gave an exhaustive eye roll and said, "If people are smart, they won't die. We need crystals—a lot of them."