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"For her it was," Will said "Can’t the two of you stop? If the Shifter is watching us, I’reatly amused"

The Shifter was not a soed shadows on the underbrush

There was no reason she should care These weren’t the people she wasthey were, even after she should have known better, but that didn’t matter anymore She didn’t have to care about what happened to them

She didn’t have to care about what happened to anyone

"Well, I’lad someone is a fun at all?"

"I think I picked up on that," Rokan said

"How perceptive of you"

Soh the trees The sparrow becaht saw the knife in the h the ferns like tiny feathers and swirled away fro?" Rokan asked

"No I don’t knohat you’re listening for Mist canany noise"

The man had risen into a half-crouch He flipped the knife to hold it by its blade

"She , or a bird, or a rat, or one of a hundred other things you wouldn’t be able to hear This is a waste of time You won’t find her unless she wants you to find her, and if she does, she’ll just come back to the castle and--"

The irl and the girl was screa, "Watch out!"

Rokan turned--toward her, not toward the knife Isabel half-leaped, half-fell through the air, knocking him off his horse The knife hit her instead, blade first

She turned into h her body and stuck, hilt quivering, in the trunk of the tree she had been watching froround with Isabel’s hazy outline on top of hi through the underbrush, her paws digging into the earth and her sharp wolf’s nostrils ht the would-be assassin before he had gone thirty yards, circling around to cut hiet by her, but stood and stared at her, his eyes afraid but direct The wolf becairl, and Isabel crossed her arms

"That was foolish," she said "In the Shifter’s forest itself? Did you think you would get aith it?"

"I’ve been waiting for hi man said "I didn’t think you would protect him"

He was tall and thin, with a scruffy, sharp-jawed face and dark blue eyes She guessed he was about the saauntness --not that she needed to see that, the wolf smelled his fear--but his face was expressionless, and his eyes were trained directly on her

"Why not?" Isabel said "I’ve protected him before, haven’t I?"

"But you left the castle You must know the truth now"

"I knew the truth then"

He flinched "The Shifter is supposed to be loyal"

"I a a very useful line, even if she only half-believed it herself

"The Shifter is the protector of the royal family You must be an imposter"

She dropped her arms to her side and stepped toward hiain to convince you?"

He tensed, but he didn’t step back "Would you?"

She s another step "No"

"No, of course not You never would"

That stopped her in her tracks "What do you mean?"

"Don’t you know me?"

She stared at him

"You were there when they came for us His father’s soldiers You tried to protect me and my sister"

Isabel shifted her hands into hands that wouldn’t shake, her expression into blankness "Is this some sort of trick?"

"I swear it’s not" He leaned forward, legs still poised to leap "You got me out You didn’t fail There’s still a royal family for you to protect You don’t have to serve those imposters"

She should have stayed a bird She should have stayed away Isabel bit back a whimper and said, "I don’t--"

"Please!" He sed hard, his eyes never leaving her face "You knowher lips in a wolflike snarl But he didn’t run He didn’t even flinch "You have to stop them You have to kill him" She had never knoord could contain such hatred "You’re the Shifter You "

"Isabel?" Rokan called The mist muffled his voice, but it didn’t sound like he was far

The would-be assassin tensed His eyes moved froive me to him"