Page 76 of The Hunting Moon
Part of her wants to wait right there in the hall so she can confront Mario—so she can get answers about Jay and demand that he protect Jay from afar while she goes after her friend. But there’s no time for that. Not when Jay has six bolts embedded in his abdomen.
Six bolts shot by Winnie’s own aunt.
She starts running. First to Jay’s room to get her backpack, then downstairs to the ground floor. The stiffness in her muscles retreats with each step, the Tin Man getting a much-needed squirt of oil. The buzzing fades too, a familiar, reliable Compendium rising up to replace it instead.
Werewolf, were-creatures: Human by day and monster by night, these rare daywalkers blend in easily and are unrecognizable from other humans in their daytime form.
So true.
Winnie never had any idea just how true.
And of course, now her brain adds the notes from Mario’s years of observation:Unaffected by sunlight. Bites—nontransmissible. No sentience in wolf form?
She doesn’t return to the kitchen, but instead aims down a long hall that will eventually reach more steps. And once again, she thinks about how Jay carried her this way last night.
This time, however, she also considers if she might have to carry him.
In seconds, Winnie has reached the hunters’ locker rooms. The Fridays might be the smallest, least funded of all the clans, but Lizzy doesn’t let her hunters go out unprotected. She funnels all clan dues into their gear and into their safety.
So surely Winnie can findsomethingthat will get her through a nightalone in the forest. Her first stop is at Grayson’s office. The door is unlocked and when she finds the light switch, the shadows flee. For half a second, while her eyes adjust, she squints through her glasses and tries to orient herself. She was here only last night—where did Jay get that melusine blood?
Desk.She charges toward it and yanks open a single drawer. An innocuous white binder stares up at her, the wordsFriday Schedulewritten in unfamiliar handwriting. She yanks it out. Then another binder, then a notebook, until finally she comes upon a simple metal tin, not so different from the dampener. When she opens it, she finds five vials within.
Her Compendium resumes its detailed narration inside her brain, like a tour guide describing each item as she plucks it up and shoves it into her backpack.
These small black stones are gastroliths from a harpy’s gizzard and produce sparks on impact with a hard surface.
This green liquid is spidrin venom. The acid can eat through most animal or nightmare flesh, but the reaction produces a deadly fog that must not be inhaled.
This gray powder is ground phoenix feather—a stimulant that can also replace gunpowder. Or explode your heart.
This clear liquid is melusine blood. When poured on a wound, it can heal external injuries. When ingested, it is an effective antidote against venoms and poison. Causes a horrible hangover.
Lastly, Winnie removes a red glass vial with no label. When she holds it to the light, it appears empty. She puts it in her backpack anyway. Just in case.
She is now a veritable pharmacy of nightmare contraband, and she has no lingering questions about why Jay has all this stuff in his possession. She suspects she also knows how he got it.
You either trust the forest or you don’t.Those were the words he said to Winnie before her second trial. Those were the words shelivedby when the Whisperer hunted her and the only path forward was straight down…
You either trust the forest or you don’t.
It was the truth at the heart of everything—the answer she wasn’t ready to see. Integrity in all. Honesty to the end. He wasn’t just saying,Trust the forest.He was saying,Trust me.And she should have. All this time, sheshouldhave, because he was the one who saved her.
Every time. Every trial.
He lured away the Whisperer on that first night.
He told her where to hide on the second.
And he knocked her from a manticore’s path, then rescued her from hypothermia and drowning on the third. Even that melusine she now knows must have healed her under the waterfall—she would bet it was only there thanks to Jay.
As Winnie twists back to the open drawer to return the empty tin, she sees something she didn’t notice when she was yanking out everything: a framed photograph of Grayson Friday. In it, he is younger and happier, his lips smushed against a girl’s forehead while she laughs. And all Winnie can think for several stunned moments is how amazing it is that so much motion can be captured by a static image.
So much emotion too, conveyed in the dark, crinkled eyes of a girl Winnie hasn’t seen in almost four years.
The next thing Winnie thinks is:Holy crap, that is Jenna Thursday.
And oh boy, was Winnie wrong to ever think Erica looked like her sister. Sure, Erica has tried to imitate Jenna with the makeup and the long hair and the clothes that lookjust so,but Jenna had a such different energy.
