Oryen suppressed his feelings about Evrynne's impending execution. He couldn't allow anyone, even for a moment, to see how disturbed he was. Not through training, meal times, or his usual catch up with Aryeta. He pressed the memory thin as possible so it didn't prickle from underneath his skin.

Only when he collapsed into his hammock that night did he unfold the memory to examine in the dark where no one could see his terror.

Inky wings. The rising tension as dozens of wolves recognized the tattoo. The snap of bone and frenzied pleas.

Lazro might have sentenced a man to death that day. Oryen had considered telling his brother who he was. Now, he could only think how desperate his situation really was. His brother. There had to be some mistake. They couldn't just play judge, jury and executioner. Quarantine couldn't be that divorced from the world outside.

But no one else had been surprised by Evrynne's treatment.

He didn't know where they kept prisoners, or if Evrynne had been executed already. He could attempt a search to free him, but Mardero was a labyrinthe. He had no clue where to begin. He realized with a twist in his stomach that he didn't even know where to find his own brother so that he could ask after Evrynne's fate. Even if he did, would he not appear guilty by association? From the way werewolves spoke, he should have no reason at all to be concerned for the life of a Fen.

Oryen tried to squash his guilt and get some rest, but no sooner had he begun to nod off than the sense of someone watching roused him. He stiffened. There was a figure in the doorway. Once, it would have been too dark for him to see. Now Oryen could see as well at night as during the day. Beau's eyes refracted light like two eerie stars in the dark. He raised a hand and indicated Oryen should follow him.

The other werewolves in the barracks were fast asleep, exhausted from the week of training and digging graves. None stirred as Oryen tiptoed out after Beau's retreating back.

"What?" he hissed.

"Come with me," Beau said.

"Uh, it's a bit late."

Beau kept walking, expectant that Oryen followed. To Oryen's own annoyance, he did, both curious and incapable of sleeping anyway. What's more, Beau's threats loomed over him, now with the added pressure of knowing what became of Fens who were found out. He quickened his pace to catch up.

"Are you going to tell me what you want, or are you just ruining my beauty sleep for a laugh?"

Beau stopped abruptly. They'd come to a junction in the tunnels with several offshoots. From the pocket of his oversized jumper, he pulled out something in a sealed bag. It looked like crumpled up clothing, stained with...

"Please tell me that isn't blood."

"I need you to track this scent," Beau said.

Oryen snorted. "I don't know how to do that."

"Learn. And as per usual, if you tell anyone about this—"

"You'll narc on me. I know. I get it." Oryen scowled at the bag. "How does this even work?"

"This belonged to someone," Beau said. Oryen could see the tendons in his neck working as he spoke. "It has their scent on it. You should be able to identify the smell if they've been around here in the past year—"

"The past year?"

"Or longer," Beau said. "I'd do it myself, but I'm not turned yet, so..."

"Yet?" Oryen raised his eyebrows. "What do you mean, 'yet?' You want to be a werewolf?"

Beau glared at him like he'd said something incredibly obtuse, but beneath that his muscles went rigid. He seemed primed to fight. He always did, but now it was charged with something else.

"Pfth, I could bite you if you want it so bad," Oryen grumbled.

He didn't expect the punch, which was perhaps why, even with his superior reflexes and speed, it landed so solidly. He reeled back a step, tasting blood on his lips. The crack of pain turned swiftly to an aching throb, and perhaps it had hurt Beau worse because he shook his hand and flexed his fingers. His steely expression said plainly that he'd like to do it again.

Anger flared in Oryen's chest, but he snuffed it out. He didn't understand Beau's vitriol toward him. He'd raided Beau's pack, sure, but what he'd seen in quarantine so far had not convinced him that werewolves were cuddly and safe. Beau had a temper that would be lethal in the body of a werewolf. He wanted that power, but evidently he didn't want it handed to him by Oryen.

The moment provided another opportunity though. Oryen had little clue where anything was located within Mardero. If there were prison cells holding Evrynne, or if his brother had a private room somewhere. It bothered him that he couldn't reach out when he needed to, had nowhere to direct his questions. He'd never consciously taken note of his brother's scent, but people always said smell was strongly tied to memory. He'd recognize it if he found it.

Maybe he could track two at once?

"Give me the bag," Oryen said.

Beau's chest rose and fell heavily. After a long wait, he shoved the bag toward Oryen, who slid the seal open. The scent inside hit him hard. Coppery—the stains were blood after all—but something unique beneath that. It straddled a line between floral and earthy, but all its own. It reminded Oryen a little of Beau's own scent, though on the surface they had nothing in common. Beau smelled like warm spices and cool weather, like the browning leaves of autumn.

"Got it?" Beau demanded.

"I think so."

"Good." He took back the bag and sealed it. "Let's go. Tell me if you pick up the scent."

"Should I bark? Howl? Bay?"

Beau stared at him hard for a long moment. "Point."

Oryen snorted a laugh. "Like a pointer? The hunting dog? Did you just make a joke?"

"One I already regret. Quit stalling."

Oryen waited for Beau to storm off, expecting him to follow again. He didn't. It was Oryen's turn to lead the way, but he'd never attempted to follow a scent before. It felt strange, lifting his chin and inhaling the stale, underground air. An inhuman motion, which he performed in the stilted manner of a heterosexual man putting on heels for the first time. The scents co-mingling in the tunnels were difficult to parse—so many werewolves crossed through this junction every day—but the scent from the bag was still strong in his mind. To his surprise, he could detect just the smallest hint of it, dry and buried beneath the others, but there all the same.

He could also detect Lazro's smell, sweet and pervasive. He'd clearly come through here plenty of times. Only one path was unlikely to lead to either person.

He circled between the different tunnels. It was still uncomfortable. He didn't like how easily this newfound skill came to him. But Beau watched him with a glare like a knife in the back, so he walked down the tunnel where both scents were strongest.

"Wait," Beau said. "Come here and give me your hands."

Oryen gave him a mistrustful look over his shoulder. In answer, Beau pulled a small bottle out of his pocket and uncorked it. Before Oryen could ask what it was, Beau slathered his own hands in the oil. It smelled overpoweringly of sandalwood.

Oryen reluctantly held out his hands as asked, and Beau poured a liberal amount into his palm. Instead of instructing him to rub it in, Beau began slathering it into the creases of his palm, between his fingers, and halfway up his forearms. Oryen's heart tripped.

"Is this some sort of test? I'm supposed to follow the smell through this fog?" he said.

"Shouldn't stop you tracking. It will stop anyone else knowing where we've been though."

Oryen had to look away. Beau's touch was both thorough and perfunctory. He clearly only wanted to ensure this was done properly and didn't trust Oryen to do it himself. Yet...a little over a week ago, Oryen had stood in a pose not unlike this one, saying goodbye to Edrik. Then he'd come here, and his brother had enveloped him in the first hug they'd shared in over a decade. It stung, how much he craved closeness, but only seemed to experience it with people who felt unreachable. Beau's hands were warm, even if his demeanour remained icy as ever.

"Who did those clothes belong to?" Oryen asked.

Beau didn't answer. He dropped Oryen's arms and said, "Good enough."

Oryen set his focus to tracking the scent.

Beau followed at a distance to keep from muddying the trail further. Tracking his brother was more difficult than Beau's mystery person—Lazro used the tunnels frequently, and each was rife with his scent. By virtue of that prevalence, Oryen could convince himself he might find more about his brother's comings and goings alongside whomever Beau was after. Oryen paused at each fork in the tunnels, turning wherever his nose led him. In spite of his protests, it was shockingly easy.

He paused at a junction with a staircase descending into the dark. The scents got muddled here, something different about them. He tilted his head, closed his eyes, but couldn't put his finger on it. There was something off—like wilted vegetables. He couldn't quite identify if those he tracked had gone down the stairs though, so he kept following the more direct route.

At a second set of stairs carved into the stone, the earthy mix of herbs smelled strongest, as if the person had doubled back on themselves a few times here. Oryen frowned, climbing each step, finding the further up they went the more the other scents fell away. Including, to his annoyance, his brother's. It was here, strong but older. Like he used to come here, but no longer. They came to a tunnel of doorways, each with a dominant scent of its occupant. Oryen slowed. The stale trail of his brother ended at a door, unremarkable except for a horseshoe held up by a single nail. It had slid so that it was upside down.

Memories washed over Oryen. His brother carefully stepping over the cracks in the pavement so he didn't break their mother's back. Making bracelets of braided string for good luck and tying them to Oryen's wrist on an exam day. He'd always been superstitious, and he'd never let the upside down horseshoe stay that way.

Perhaps this had been his room once, but no longer.

Oryen couldn't tarry in front of it long or risk alerting Beau to his interest. He kept walking, following the other scent, but Lazro's abandoned room itched at the back of his mind. He stopped in front of a different door. It was shut and decorated with a wreath of holly berries.

"Well?" said Beau.

"Whoever it was went in there. Maybe a few times. Scent is strongest in this hall."

Beau's expression was unreadable. "You're sure?"

"Pretty sure, yeah."

One of Beau's fists unclenched, and he tapped the inside of his palm with his middle finger. Over and over. A nervous tick, perhaps, though he didn't strike Oryen as fearful.

"What's the matter?"

Beau said very quietly. "That's Kalysto Nomoir's room."