Page 7 of Quest of the Wolf

“Yes. But hardly anyone can pass along our magic that way anymore.”

“Is Jasmine hardly anyone?”

“No.”

“Okay.” Bolin brightened. “Good. Will you see her soon to talk to her?” A hand on his chest impliedabout me.

“I’m not sure. She’s researching something for me now.”

“The wolf case?”

“No, that’s....” I hadn’tforgottenthat our elusive wolf-lidded magical case had finally opened, revealing a metallic mushroom-shaped artifact that had saved Duncan from a fast-acting poison, but I’d been worried about his disappearance. I had mentally and physically put the case aside to mull on later. It, the lid again closed and locked, was back in the heat duct under my bed. At the moment, Jasmine, who’d witnessed the miraculous healing, was the only person besides Duncan who knew about its contents. But since Bolin had been studying it, maybe he deserved an explanation. It might also take his mind off his disappointment in realizing Jasmine probably wasn’t at home, writing his name in her journal with hearts around it. “The case has had a new development. I’m not sure what to think.”

“Oh?” Bolin’s brows rose with interest.

“When I was fighting my cousins, it popped open.” Speaking quietly so we wouldn’t be overheard, I explained how the artifact inside had healed Duncan’s wound.

“That’s amazing, but how did the case justpopopen? We tried everything from pliers to reading the translation aloud in English and the original Ancient Greek to unlock it. We even used lubricating potions on the hinges while chantingopen sesame. It seemed fused in place.”

“It’s not fused.” I debated how to explain what had prompted it to open without admitting that Duncan had been cloned from an ancient werewolf with the power to turn into a bipedfuris, the towering two-legged version of our kind with the ability to spread lycanthropy through his bite. “We believe that it opens when one of the threats that it—the artifact inside—was designed to protect against is nearby. Like it senses something with venom or poison.” I didn’t bring up werewolf bites, the third item mentioned in the inscription. “And then it makes itself available to help the person nearby.”

“Oh, how handy. It sensed that the sword your cousin used was poisoned? And that’s when the lid opened?”

I was fairly certain Duncan’s presence in the two-legged formhad been the catalyst, but I nodded. It hadn’t occurred to me before, but therewasa possibility the poisoned sword had caused the case to open. Maybe I’d wrongly assumed the bipedfuris had been responsible.

“We didn’t get a chance to experiment, but Duncan asked if we had rattlesnakes or scorpions around,” I said. “He wanted to see if a venom-producing creature would cause it to open. Strangely, I don’t keep any of those in my truck, so we still don’t know.”

“Did you try waving the poisoned sword over it again?”

“No. The house was on fire by that point.”

“On fire,” Bolin mouthed.

“When my family fights with each other, we go all out.” Technically, Duncanand his underwater demolitions had been responsible for the explosion that had started the fire, but my vile cousins had prompted that need. “You have siblings, don’t you? Or cousins? You know how chaotic things can get, I’m sure.”

“I guess so. My little brother and I wrestled on the couch once, knocked over a candle, and spilled hot wax on our mother’s newly installed carpet.”

I scratched my cheek. Such an incident wouldn’t count as worth recalling in a werewolf family. Hell, Cameron and Austin had caused more of a mess than that on a weekly basis, and the lupine magic hadn’t even passed along to them.

“We were grounded for three weeks,” Bolin added.

“If you’d been one of my kids, I wouldn’t even have denied you dessert for that crime.” As an ardent dark-chocolate fan, I’d always considered withholding sweets a far worse punishment thangrounding. That was more of a torment for the parents than the kids since it meant the rowdy ones were stuck at home, plotting more trouble.

“Really?” Bolin looked wistfully at me. “Every time my parents grounded me, they took away all my electronics. I had to either read old-school physical books or practice the violin.”

“I forgot that was on your résumé.” I pantomimed running a bow over strings. “Maybe you should be serenading cute girls while you hand them fancy mochas.”

“I’ve tried that before. It didn’t work as well as the chick flicks would lead you to believe.”

“Did you play super boring classical music or something good?”

“Classical music isn’tboring. And some of it takes amazing mastery with the violin. How could younotfall for a guy who flawlessly played Niccolò Paganini’s ‘Caprice No. 24’ under your window?”

Only the serious earnestness in his eyes kept me from laughing at the question.

“Jasmine likes rap,” was what I said.

I expected my spelling-bee champion to be affronted by the thought of such pedestrian music, but he squinted at me, as if I’d offered him a challenge.

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