Oryen raised his eyebrows. "You're stalking Kalysto Nomoir?"

"No!" Beau hissed, then lowered his voice even further. "The shirt didn't belong to her. I...can you tell if anyone's inside?"

"Last I checked, lycanthropy didn't come with x-ray vision."

"Put your ear to the door and listen for breathing, I meant."

Oryen felt very creepy doing so, but he obeyed. Pressing his ear to the wood, he strained to listen. Instead of the steady breath of someone sleeping, or rummaging from inside, all he could hear was Beau's heartbeat next to him. It drummed an irregular, fast tempo.

"All I can hear is you," Oryen whispered.

"Me?"

"Your heart. Go further away." He shooed Beau with a hand, and took some vindictive joy in watching him pace a few steps back. Oryen put his ear back to the door, but even with the added quiet, there was nothing from the other side. "Don't hear anything."

"Good."

Beau tried the door handle. Locked, so he knelt and pulled a hairpin from his pocket. Oryen shot a nervous glance down the hallway.

"Seems rude to invade a lady's bedroom."

Beau said, "I'm not interested in being polite."

"You don't really need me here for this, do you?"

"In case anyone catches us, yes," Beau said with his usual comforting airs, or lack thereof.

After intense clicking and fiddling, the sound of a bolt sliding out of its housing announced Beau's success. He stood and let himself in, closing the door behind them.

The chamber inside looked nothing like the barracks. A sturdy oak bed frame was piled with blankets and furs. An open hearth, carved from the wall itself, made the room smell smoky even if it hadn't been lit in months. Books formed piles like waterfalls on and around a desk. Wardrobes and chests overflowed, dripping clothes.

Beau said, "Try to sniff out anything that smells like it belonged to her."

"Her? So bloody-t-shirt-person is a woman?"

Beau turned away, but Oryen caught the look of self-reproof. Beau didn't want him knowing much at all about the woman he was looking for, but based on his reaction, Oryen could only assume it was someone important to him.

The scent was difficult to pinpoint in the room. It seemed everywhere, like the woman had spent some time here. Kalysto's belongings were strewn all over the place, muddying the trail further. One thing stuck out to Oryen amongst all the clutter.

"I smell blood."

Beau froze. "Where?"

Oryen felt queasy. He pointed to a spot close to the bed. "Strongest there. But everywhere. It's—" He turned aside and collected himself. "It must have been a lot."

Beau's voice, normally a deep, rasping velvet was suddenly tight and airless. "Whose blood? Is it hers?"

He meant the owner of the t-shirt. Oryen kicked himself. "No, no. Not hers. Someone else's. Don't recognize it."

Beau's shoulders unwound a fraction, but Oryen could hear his heart hammering. "Focus on the person we're looking for," he said. Then, after a considering pause, "What's your blood type?"

The question caught him off guard enough to forget his lingering nausea. "Huh?"

"Your blood type."

"O negative. Why?"

Cryptically, Beau didn't answer the question. He just nodded and said, "Good."

Oryen grumbled, but went back to the task at hand. He didn't know how Kalysto could stay here with that rank smell. Attempts to clean it had been made, but to his new senses they were paltry. It made tracking difficult. He looked around at the clothes, the hairbrush with golden hair still stuck in the bristles, the old vanity covered in—his chest tightened—makeup. Too bad Kalysto's skin wasn't close to the same colour as his, or he'd consider pilfering her foundation. That wasn't why these things stuck out, though.

These possessions implied that she still spent most of her nights here. Not with Reyz.

"She and Reyz just got hitched, but I don't see or smell much of him in here."

"This was her room before their marriage," Beau said. "Presumably, she's with him now in his own quarters, but kept these for herself."

Oryen took up searching through a chest, where he found piles of books. He removed them, stack by stack, but found nothing beneath them.

Beau said, "Make sure there's nothing stuck in the pages."

Oryen flipped each book upside down and gave them a shake. He'd gone through over a dozen before something fluttered into his lap.

It was a photograph. Not of Kalysto, but he did recognize one face amongst those pictured. Reyz looked sharp in a red coat and winning smile. Beside him was his polar opposite. They were the same height, the same ruddy skin and auburn hair, but while Reyz's smile and kind eyes were cherubic, the man next to him looked wrought from raw meat. His face was an apothecary of scar tissue. Keloid, burn, pink and raw. The grizzliest of all split the corner of his mouth so that his smile was lopsided and wide as a skull's. A tall, handsome woman stood between the two with her arms over their shoulders, stern and unsmiling.

Beau noticed his silence and came to look. "That's the Zarkir pack. Not important. Keep looking," he said.

"So this is Kalysto's first husband?" Oryen said, pointing to the scarred man.

"Yes. Aro." Beau paused in his rummaging through a bedside cabinet. "She was meant to marry Reyz, but Aro challenged him to combat for her hand. Nobody thought he could win. He had a shortened gait, a bad leg."

Oryen tried not to look horrified. People got scars. Beau had scores across his face, but Aro's scars were something else.

"What happened to him?"

"Far as I've heard? Accident when he was young. No details beyond that. He wasn't the sharing type."

"You met him?"

"Briefly. He was murdered before I could get to know him. Seemed all right." Beau gave Oryen a pointed look. "He was quiet."

Oryen decided not to take offense. He considered the photo before carefully replacing it in the book. His gaze strayed to the spot where the blood smelled thickest, stomach turning. "Do you think Kalysto killed Aro?"

Beau's eyes flicked to the same spot. Had Aro died right there?

"She was vocally angry after Aro won the match. She gave him a mirror for a wedding present, to remind him of the reason he didn't deserve her. That's if you believe the gossip."

"You didn't answer my question. Do you think she killed him?"

Beau was quiet long enough Oryen didn't think he'd answer.

"For me, the question isn't whether or not she did it. It's whether or not he deserved it."

Oryen shivered. Outside these walls, he'd thought everyone deserved a chance. In here, it was a ruthless contest for who could be the biggest asshole.

And his brother was in danger at the centre of it.

Though, Oryen couldn't be sure he'd react any better if his own marriage had been decided by a punch up instead of a romantic proposal.

While returning books to the chest, Oryen spotted a strange hole near the bottom. It was semi-circular and too even to be a natural flaw in the wood. A slightly herbal smell floated up from it. Emptying the chest again, he inserted two fingers and the floor lifted easily. It was a false bottom.

Beneath, it was empty except for a scabbard about the length of his forearm. It looked old, the leather soft and aged with twisting designs engraved along its length. It held no weapon, but Oryen hesitated to touch it. It smelled strongly of the t-shirt Beau had shown him, but that wasn't the sole reason.

Something about it felt ancient and dangerous.

"I found something," he said.

Beau came over. He froze. A dark mix of horror and hope crossed his usually immutable face.

"What is it?" Oryen said."

Without answering, Beau leaned past him, reached into the chest, pulled out the scabbard and tucked it under his hoodie.

"Put the books back," he said.

"You're taking it?"

"Nevermind. She'll likely know someone was here and what they came for anyway."

"You can't just steal it out of her bedroom."

Beau's voice turned icy. "It isn't hers."

Oryen studied him. The stubborn set of his jaw and the defiant look in his eyes.

"It belonged to your family, didn't it? Your mother?"

A flicker of shock. A slight widening of the eyes. Beau looked like the flash of a wound that had until now been carefully disguised. Oryen didn't quite understand how he'd gleaned as much. Perhaps something in the scent or the way it related to Beau's, or simply the intense manner with which Beau had presented the shirt.

Questions circled Oryen's head. Beau hadn't wanted anyone else to know he was searching for her, had contracted Oryen for the job because he could leverage Oryen into silence. So who was Beau's mother? What was she doing in Mardero, where was she now, and how did this scabbard of hers come into Kalysto's possession?

Oryen asked none of these things. "You could just ask me to help, you know. Without the stabbing and blackmail."

A mirthless ghost of a laugh. "I don't trust you."

"Shame. I'm very trustworthy. But you don't seem to trust anybody."

"You separated me from everyone I trust," Beau bit out. "Convenient that you keep forgetting."

A surge of guilt hit Oryen in the chest, but he didn't have time to respond. From down the hall, the sound of footsteps echoed. Beau froze, listening, then said,

"Hide."

He ran straight for the fireplace. Before Oryen could question the choice, Beau crawled up the floo and vanished in a scuffle of ash. Like a cockroach fleeing the light, Oryen thought, bewildered. He ran to follow, but there was no way he'd fit up there even to hide temporarily. He was too large for the stuffed wardrobe as well. The footsteps sounded too loud and close for him to run for the door and escape unseen—or was that the eerie echo effect the tunnels sometimes had?

He couldn't take the chance. With a silent prayer, he dropped onto his belly and slid underneath the bed as quickly as he could. The second he hit the floor, the scent of blood swamped his senses, so viscous he could nearly taste it. He gagged, held his breath.

Someone knocked at the door. Oryen waited. It wasn't Kalysto, or she'd have just come in. A pause, another knock, and then after a brief period in which Oryen thought his lungs would burst, the door opened a crack.

"Kaly? Your door's unlo—"

Oryen recognized the gruff voice. Serove peered in. Then, seeing the room empty, opened it further. He took in the disarray of the room, but it being no different from how Oryen and Beau had found it, this didn't seem to alarm Serove. It was the unlocked door. He looked back at it with a frown, then turned back to the room. His nostrils flared. The smell of sandalwood was a pervasive miasma, and Oryen was the source. Not only that, but his heart was caving in his ribs. Oryen had heard Beau's heart hammering out in the hall, surely Serove would hear his now.

Serove's chin tilted slightly and, like a bloodhound, he followed the smell into the room.

Oryen's lungs strained with his held breath. He tried not to picture what would happen to him when Serove found him. It would be a lot worse than two hundred laps of the arena. Serove's feet came closer and closer to the bed. Any moment, Oryen would see the Gamma's grizzled face appear under the bed frame.

Then Serove veered left and away, towards the chimney. Perhaps the old scent of blood had thrown him. Oryen heard him sniff the air. When he bent to look up the floo, he could have turned his head and met Oryen's eyes.

Serove said under his breath, "Shit."

He stood and, to Oryen's relief, marched out the door again.

Oryen waited for the footsteps to recede into silence before coming out. He let out the breath he'd been holding too long and scrambled away from the wretched smell of blood. Beau slid out of the fireplace, smeared with black ash, his eyes trained on the door. Oryen dusted himself off, as if he could cleanse the damning smell from himself.

"Well, it's a relief he isn't very bright," he said. "But he's going to tell Kalysto someone invaded her quarters. We should—"

"She would know anyway. The smell's everywhere." Beau continued to stare at the door as if Serove were still there. Kalysto realizing someone had been there clearly didn't bother him as much as her finding out who. He broke his trance to jab a finger into Oryen's chest.

"Get a clean change of clothes. Get rid of these ones. Make sure you shower thoroughly before going back to the barracks. Got it?"

Oryen didn't need any encouragement. He couldn't decide whose wrath he feared more—Serove's or Kalysto's.

But he certainly didn't want to face both.