Silver Secrets

Chapter 27: Bree

The forest is very quiet today. The ground glitters with frost and my breath comes out in clouds, so it's hard for me to take aim, especially as my fingers are red and numb from the cold. I had to cut the fingers off my gloves because it makes it easier to shoot. Even so, this shot hits the potato sack right in the middle of the top half, where the collarbones would be on a man. The sack looks more like a muddy pincushion now, though, even though only one of every three or four shots actually hit anything. It's just that I've been practising so much, it looks like I'm better than I am.

"Bree?" Eddie pokes his head around the side of the hut. "Can you come inside for a minute?"

I lower my bow and put the arrow I was about to fire back in the quiver. Have I done something wrong? Is Angaret about to die? She seemed a lot better yesterday. Maybe River found Melanthe. I follow Eddie round to the front of the hut, my boots skidding on the frozen mud.

Inside, the one room the hut has is orange and smoky from the fire in the small hearth. Eddie crouches in front of it and prods the spindly twigs with a poker. He looks up when I close the door.

"Sit down, Bree. We've got some decisions to make."

I take off my gloves, scarf, and cloak, and sit down on my bedroll, between Clay and Eddie and across from Angaret. She's sitting up now, and she doesn't wear bandages over the claw marks any more, though she's wearing her shirt back to front so it doesn't touch her back.

"We need to decide what we're going to do now," she starts, taking a long look at each of us, even me. "River has concluded from her observations that Melanthe and Liuetenant Bedauri are currently out of our reach, and we've no reason to assume they won't remain that way."

My heart sinks at the thought of losing a thousand gold pieces, all because River lost our targets.

"Of course, if we don't prevent their return to Moon Bay, then we won't get paid. That was the condition on the letter from our employer. In this case the potential reward is too big to forfeit. I have a way we can fulfil our contract without the need for Melanthe or Liuetenant Bedauri, but it is extremely dangerous."

She pauses as if letting us think about what she's just said. Then Clay says, "We just survived a fight with a werewolf and his freaky mind-controlling girlfriend. I'm sure whatever you're about to suggest, we'll manage it somehow."

"We'll have to, or we would've come all this way and risked our lives for nothing," Eddie adds.

Angaret sits up straighter. "Good. Good. That's what I was hoping I'd hear. Because the letter we received—you do still have it, Clay, don't you?"

Clay nods and pats the leather pouch secured around his waist.

"It said we needed to make sure Melanthe and her werewolf do not return to Moon Bay. We will need some kind of proof, but not necessarily a body. We'd never smuggle that into the city anyway. I'm sure our employer will be happy with just a werewolf skull."

River hisses through her teeth. "I told you, I can't find Rowan and Melanthe anywhere nearby. I found his cloak in that cave, but no sign of where they went. They just disappeared."

"It doesn't matter, because we're not going to kill them—Bedauri may have dragged himself off to die somewhere else, for all we know. I want everyone prepared to leave as soon as I'm strong enough. Maybe we can't get this one particular werewolf, but there's a whole pack of them in these woods, and plenty of village girls as well."

River does her sharky grin again as she realises what Angaret is suggesting. "Give me a couple of days to find out where the dogs live. That's brilliant, Angaret!"

"Or maybe the werewolf pack is hiding them," Eddie adds, stroking his scruffy red beard thoughtfully. "I doubt it'll take much convincing to get them to hand them over. Not with Bedauri having been in the Guard."

River snorts. "You have to overcomplicate everything. Just lure a dog out and shoot it. Once we boil the skulls, nobody ever has to know the difference."