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Da what it woulddown the Veil, take the Lost Ones hoo? She knew the answer Never Her loyalty to Hunyadi h to keep her here, but now she had Blue Jay in her life She would stay here with hiendary world

Exhaustion caught up with her Her whole body ached

"You need to sleep," he said

"Not yet," Da his jeans

The war could wait until

CHAPTER 16

The fox trotted through the woods, hoping for a vole orto capture her mind It helped to have left her hus and the creatures of the wood filled her httime erased the voices that haunted her from the day Here she could find joy Here, she was only a fox, and not expected to be anything but that

The night offered the fox freedo twitched in the underbrush and her sto the scent A rabbit, up past its bedtiot that as a fox she could not s the dirt as she darted after the rabbit It fled between two thick, tangled bushes, a hitch in its step that revealed some old injury A swift flash of copper fur pursued the rabbit as it weaved around the base of a large tree and ducked underneath a fallen, rotting birch

The fox leaped the dead tree and caround, da

Kitsune caught the rabbit easily and dragged it down, the two ani over one another It tried to rise before she could, but its ruined leg failed it and the rabbit faltered The fox pinned it under her forepaws, chest heaving with adrenaline and the thrill of the hunt

Yet it had not been ruue, a twinge of regret touched her What joy could be found in catching prey that could not possibly outrun her?

The fox stepped back

Panting, the rabbit stared at her a ht It rolled over slowly, twitchingly aware of her presence, keeping her in its peripheral vision Quivering, it took a single hop, then waited to see if she would pursue When she did not, the rabbit bolted, li even as it ran deeper into the woods

Sadness made its nest in Kitsune’s heart Yet this was not the ache of guilt and lost love that had plagued her before This new pain came fro time, and all she could do was hold it close She had been face-to-face with Oliver, and nothing had changed He did not hate her, but he did not love her Whatever closeness the future ht have held for the Julianna and abandoning therowled quietly, lay back her head to look at the loriously in sorrow and fury

Oliver’s woht Much as she hated it, Kitsune had to admire Julianna’s self-control Were their roles reversed, the fox-woman would have torn out her throat

As a fox, and a trickster, there were s about humanity that she had never understood or even experienced A lesson had been learned, now, and she would never be able to unlearn it Hu with pain every day, and still going on as if the world had not changed around you

So Kitsune would go forward She wouldHunyadi--for her own kind and for the Lost Ones as well But when the war ended, she thought she ht retreat to the Oldhere Frost and Oliver had first found her and si as it took to forget the lesson that living as a woht her

A quiet step ca thefrom the trees He had come to her doind, so that she would not catch his scent

His eyes had always laughed, even when he did not wish theht of the jester, the trickster, of Coyote But the Sandht, only tenderness His coat gleay mutt of a beast that he often see him

The coyote caan to oing around her once, twice, a third time He lay back his head and howled It had not the beauty of the wolf’s cry, but the coyote’s lament broke her heart anew He had borne witness to her pain today, and suffered so h she had made it plain she wished to be alone

The fox did not try to send hied her snout playfully with his nose, then darted away Confused, she only looked at hilanced back

Only then did she understand He wanted her to run with hihten her heart

It a she had always been about Coyote If not for hiuilt in the cave at the back of his den

The fox barked a little laugh and gave chase, wondering what she would do when at last the coyote allowed her to catch him

The ferries didn’t run in Boston Harbor in March, and wouldn’t until the tourists started to show up in May Sheriff Norris could have contacted the local authorities and gotten their cooperation--Sara had urged hi to have to come up with an explanation for their off-season visit

Cops

Sara had spent her entire life trying to figure out the otten very far They were proud and stubborn and courageous and sometimes damned fools

The sheriff had tracked down a local tour boat operator illing to take thely brisk March ht across her throat The similarity to her father’s last known journey--on a rented boat out to a deserted island off the western coast of Scotland--was not lost on her In truth, thinking of it made her feel a bit nauseated

She stood inside the tour boat--its engine chugging, filling their noses with a terrible oil sine how cold it would be if she allowed that acrid odor to drive her out on the deck for fresh air Finally, nearly choking, she stepped out on the prow of the boat and let the wind buffet her, whisking away the ss now and she breathed it in gratefully Her teeth chattered and she shivered, but she surrendered to the cold, letting it settle into her body Somehow it made her feel more alive

Jackson and Marc Friedle--his na herself for the hundredth ti Every ti the huoblin wore instead of the limpse only twice His true face would always be seared into her h, even here in the harbor, and she stood with her legs wide so as not to lose her balance The captain andon a path between islands Sara had been out here several tier Once her father had taken her out to George’s Island for a picnic, and she remembered it well