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Not that a bath was in my immediate future anyway, if old Henry had his way

He was sitting in one of the top forks of the gu sharply against the cheery yelloers that dotted the tree His silver hair gleaht, and his nut-brown skin was as weathered and worn as the bark of the tree itself

He wasn't Directorate personnel, but rather a friend of Jack's He was also a hawk-shifter, and his family apparently had ties with Jack's that ay back I'd tried so useful about ossiper

"Riley," he warned again

"Henry," I said,to have an inch of white skin left if you keep this up"

"Jack says you must learn as quickly as possible"

"Jack hasn't been thrown out of a tree a million times"

He laughed - a rich, rumpiness

"It's only twenty today It took Jack a good thirty or so tiot it"

Jack ht be a vaht hundred years ago - but he'd been born a hawk-shifter and had the advantage of co to learn, then heaven help me

I raised ht Jack?"

"I aend in our roost Feks are so slow to learn" He laughed again "There are some who say that's why he's bald He lost his hair because he landed on his head too often"

I grinned "Well, I'ulls"

"You have spent most of your life as a wolf It's natural that you would find the ways of flying difficult" He shook the rope tied to the branch near his legs "Come"

"If it was as easy as coroan as a dozen fresh aches erupted acrossto be black and blue by tonight Not that it really o home to anymore