"I do not know," the woman mumbled. She tried to shake her head, but the gesture was feeble.

Darmouth's expression darkened. He lifted his boot over the woman's face.

"My lord!" Hedi shouted, and stepped into view. "She is a scholar, not just some commoner."

It was a desperate guess, and all Hedi could think of to halt any further abuse.

Darmouth lowered his foot at the sight of Hedi. He swallowed hard and took a deep, slow breath, perhaps not wishing to appear the beast that he was in front of her. In any other moment Hedi would have found this sickeningly humorous. She consoled herself: As long as Byrd breathed, one day this tyrant would choke and squirm in his own blood.

Darmouth glanced down at the young woman, then back to Hedi.

"Of course," he answered, and turned to Omasta. "Secure this prisoner in a room on the first level-not the lower cells-and put a guard on the door. I'll speak to her later, when…"

He trailed off, watching Hedi. The rest of his orders were not for her ears. He headed back into the counsel hall, motioning Omasta to follow. Omasta nodded to his men and joined his lord.

Hedi had no doubt that Darmouth would order Omasta to organize a raid on Byrd's inn.

The girl on the floor slowly rolled her head to look at Hedi with her good eye. One soldier shoved her belongings back into the pack, and both hoisted her up by the shoulders and dragged her up the stairs.

Hedi followed from a distance.

The guards took their prisoner up the stairs and down the corridor of the second level. Hedi watched long enough to see which room they placed her in. One remained outside the door. Hedi hurried quietly up the stairs to her own room. Once inside she could not sit still, and paced the floor.

A fire burned in the small hearth. She looked about at the cherry-wood desk and wardrobe and the thick quilt upon her bed. Darmouth took pains to have this room made comfortable for her. Such thoughts made her hate the surroundings even more. The same man thought nothing of stepping on the face of a helpless girl for answers she might not even have.

Hedi did not know why she had put herself at risk for this stranger. It was a foolish act that gained her nothing.

"Mrowr."

The sound was so soft that Hedi was not certain she had heard it until scratches followed outside her door. What was a cat doing inside the keep?

She twisted the latch, opened the door, and a dark little form bolted around her skirt into the room. Hedi twisted about.

A small, brown-black cat, with eyes of matching color and a bobbed tail, hopped up on the bed. It stared back at her and let out a soft "purr."

In spite of everything Hedi had just witnessed, she almost smiled. "There are wolfhounds below, you little fool. How did you get in here?"

Perhaps a soldier or servant had brought it in to hunt vermin in the lower levels, but this one looked too small for such a task. It was barely beyond a kitten. Firelight glimmered off the fur across its ears and face.

Hedi approached the foot of the bed, reaching out. "Very well, come here. I will have Julia fetch some milk. If you are lucky, there might even be cream."

A ripple swelled through the cat's shoulders.

Hedi jerked her hand back.

A larger swell passed down its back as it craned its neck and crouched low. It issued a grating yowl, digging its claws into the bedcovers as its eyes rolled up in its head.

Hedi backed away as the cat flopped on the quilt, twitching.

Its face flattened and its round muzzle collapsed inward upon a skull that bloated from within. Shoulders widened to grotesque misshapen mounds about its thickening neck. Black-brown fur thinned, and pale flesh showed beneath. Forelegs elongated. Ears shriveled inward around its stretching face. Eyes rolled back down and irises shrank, as its whole body began to grow in size…

Hedi almost cried out as she whipped around, lunging for the door.

"Hello!" a small voice called.

She sucked in a breath she could not let out, and flattened her back against the door.

Sitting in the middle of her bed was a naked little girl with dark eyes and skin and long wavy hair.

"It's me," Korey said with a giggle, then waved happily at Hedi.

Hedi panted in short breaths as she slumped to the floor, unable to even blink.

Korey crawled off the bed's side and dropped to the floor in her bare feet… bare everything. She started to run across the room but stopped and smothered another giggle with her hand.

"Whoops! I forgot again," she said, and with a sigh scurried back to pull at the quilt with all her strength. "My clothes don't come with me "

Hedi tried to speak. "H-how…"

Korey struggled to pull the quilt around herself. It was too big, and half of it wrapped around the bedpost. She stopped struggling long enough to look at Hedi.

"Papa taught me," she said, as if it were obvious.

"Your father… taught you that?" Hedi whispered.

"Uh-huh. Mama can do it too… I think, but I've never seen it. Papa can do great big ones, when he wants." Korey frowned and tried to look over her shoulder at her own bare buttocks. "But I can't get the tail. Just a stubby thing!"

As a child, Hedi had heard stories of shifters. Most were too wild to be anything but superstitious nonsense, folklore forgotten as the fancies of youth.

"Can… can all your people do this?" she asked.

Korey finally heaved the quilt free and wrapped it about herself, but most of it dragged across the floor as she came to plop down before Hedi.

"Papa says some, but not all. It's a family thing. Mama says Auntie Balalee-I never met her yet-sees things that aren't there but are somewhere else. I don't understand that part. Are you sick?"

"Sick?" Hedi's breathing slowed, but her heart still pounded against her ribs. "No, I… I am fine."

She touched the ribbon about her throat. Faris could turn himself into a great cat, perhaps something like a mountain lion. It was no wonder that Darmouth wanted control over this family of Mondyalitko. Her heart tightened in fear for little Korey.

"You should not be here," Hedi said. "What if Julia finds you gone from your room?"

Korey shrugged and rolled her eyes. "She won't come till dinner; then she'll just leave the tray. No one ever comes to visit but you. You like to be with me. Mama and Papa love me… but you like to be with me."

Hedi took a deep breath and let it out. "Oh, Korey."

Hedi's own mother had liked nothing better than to visit with her daughters, play at cards, and braid their hair, even late into the night. Hedi never realized the wonder of a mother's companionship until it was gone. And Korey's own parents were never allowed that close to her for too long.

Hedi did not like using a child, but unless Darmouth was assassinated, Korey would grow up trapped here, until he used her like her parents-or killed her. Korey did not appear to know of the lost sibling that Ventina had viciously hinted at. If Byrd was not warned, he would be arrested, and everything they had worked for would be lost, even the life and future of this girl. And it appeared Darmouth did not know Korey shared her parents' ability, or he would have taken extra precautions with the child.

She grasped Korey's shoulders. "Lord Darmouth has captured a young woman and locked her in a room one floor below us. He calls us guests, but that is a lie. I am a prisoner here-as are you. Do you understand that?"

Korey pulled back suspiciously. "Papa says we aren't supposed to talk about that."

Hedi felt a twinge of guilt, but there was too much at stake to stop now. "Your father is afraid of Lord Darmouth, and he should be. You are a good girl for your papa, but I must get a message to a friend in the city, or we could all… get hurt, including your parents. Can you sneak out as a cat and take it to where I tell you? Stay in the shadows on the bridge, and you will be small and dark enough that no one will notice."