Page 28 of Quest of the Wolf

“I’d feel guilty wasting your gas. I’ll turn into a wolf if I get cold. Or spoon with the raccoon.”

“Yes, they’re into cuddling up with predators.” I lifted a hand in parting. Not sure how long the potion or its tingle would last, I took off at a jog.

The movement kept me warm, but it wasn’t long before the uneven ground and lack of a trail had me tripping in the dark, my human vision not up to traversing the forest on a cloudy night. I second-guessed bringing the sword and my clothes. This would have been easier in lupine form.

When the agitated howls sounded again, the same hunch that had told me Duncan might be out here told me to hurry. Whatever he was doing to irritate those wolves might escalate into an attack.

“He can take care of himself against a pair of normal werewolves,” I told myself.

Of course, because I’d only heard two howling didn’t mean there weren’t more. I ran faster, accepting that stubbed toes and branches whacking me in the face were a fair byproduct of a heroic rescue.

Soon, I came upon an old logging road heading in the right direction and turned onto that. Was it the same road Jasmine and I had been driving up?

“Should have taken the truck,” I panted, running on the packed earth.

Now and then, the gurgle of the stream reached my ears as I continued uphill, the snowy mountains visible beyond the trees.

The next time a howl sounded, it was close, so I slowed down, sweat bathing my face. It cut off abruptly, and I paused. Had Duncan or someone else attacked the wolf?

The howls didn’t start up again.

Biting my lip, I continued on, veering off the road and in the direction I’d heard them, the direction the tingle in my chest kept leading me. It had faded slightly, and I worried the potion’s effects wouldn’t last long.

In the trees ahead, somewhere near the stream, two magical beings ran through my awareness. Werewolves.

Again, I slowed, this time holding the sword aloft in case I needed to defend myself. I didn’t recognize the auras of those werewolves.

But they weren’t coming toward me, instead running across the route ahead. They soon passed out of my senses. Palm damp around the hilt of the sword, I headed in the direction they’d come from.

Soon, I sensed more magic. There was a being—was that Duncan?—and more that I couldn’t guess at. Artifacts? Magical beings? Whatever they were, they emitted more power than the mushrooms.

Something malevolent lingered about at least one of the things I sensed. It raised my hackles, reminding me of the magical security devices that my cousins had planted alongside Mom’s driveway, the devices that shot beams at me.

Maybe Duncan was indeed a prisoner out here.

The warmth in my chest that had guided me in this direction had worn off, but I didn’t doubt my own senses. He was out here. I just had to figure out how to reach him.

Again, I came upon the stream, ferns and thistle dense along its banks. I followed it toward a cliff with a waterfall tumbling down the face. Had there been a trail, I might have wondered if I’d reached one of the hikes on Jasmine’s to-do list. But this was probably private land, maybe still a part of Radomir’s mushroom farm.

I shined my phone’s flashlight around the waterfall, debating if I could climb up the cliff to the top, but my senses believed Duncan wasinsideit. In a cave? The magical items were in that direction too.

Picking my way closer, I didn’t see any openings, but my flashlight did glint off something metal among the ferns near the base of the cliff. As I approached, a high-pitched beeping started up, like a smoke detector in need of a battery change but louder.Muchlouder.

“That’s definitely coming from the cliff,” I muttered, wishing for earplugs.

If that had been going off earlier, it might have been what irritated those wolves. Another scan of the cliff face didn’t reveal any cave openings, but… was that a gap behind the waterfall?

“Duncan?” I called. “Are you back there? Shackled to a stone wall and being tortured by that annoying beeping?”

I didn’t receive an answer.

“There you are.” I stepped over the ferns toward the gap. I was right; it led behind the waterfall.

My toe clunked into something. I’d almost forgotten the metallic glint. It was…

“One of Duncan’s magnets?” I asked in confusion.

Attached to a rope, it appeared similar to the one Rue had wielded like a weapon in the parking lot. But Duncan hadn’t had any of his magnets with him the night he’d helped me in Augustus’s mansion. He’d brought some explosives but not a whole backpack. Even if he’d had more with him, once he’d changed into his bipedfuris form, he would have lost everything.

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