As I glanced at Bastien, he also was picking rather than eating.

“Hunters,” Sergius began. “You must tell us everything.”

“Yes.” Bastien heaved a deep sigh, setting down his fork.

He began to recount what had happened to him—how the hunters had swept through the Blackhall lair in the dead of night, how he’d watched his parents and siblings murdered, then been dragged back to their base with not a clue as to why or what they wanted with him. How they had decided to keep them alive and caged him up… As he recounted this part of the story, I wondered whether they had kept Bastien alive because they’d detected something unusual about him, that he was a different kind of werewolf, and rather than kill him had instead wanted to take him back to their headquarters on Earth for testing. Hmm.

Bastien moved on to explain how I had rescued him. Even though in fact it was Arwen who’d cut his bars and freed him—I was just the one who’d suggested it—he spoke of the incident as though I were the only one involved, as though he had only seen me. Then he recounted the painful experience of discovering that his uncle and cousin had betrayed him. Brucella, being the sister of Bastien’s mother, and not directly related by blood to either Detrius or his father Orion, was quick to cry curses at the men and decry them as monsters.

Brucella turned into a weeping wreck, having learned she’d lost her sister, brother-in-law, and her nieces and nephews in the span of one night. Rona also cried, though not as loudly.

As Bastien finished his tale, he looked up at me, grim.

Well, this has been a cheery dinner.

It took a while for Brucella to stop wailing, but finally she gripped her fork, her hands practically shaking with anger. “We must eradicate these humans! We must!” Her eyes were fierce, and she practically snarled the words. “We must make them rue the day they ever set foot on our land!” She stood up from the table, stamping one foot. Then her glower narrowed on me. Her stare gave me shivers. She was looking at me as though I was the culprit. Then again, she had been cold with me ever since I’d entered the room, even before she’d found out about her family’s deaths. What is this woman’s problem? Maybe she was just prejudiced against humans, period.

“Yes, we must.” Sergius spoke up, his voice hoarse. “But Brucella, we are exhausted with grief and we will all think more clearly in the morning.”

Brucella descended into another round of sobs before her husband stood up and took her by the shoulders and led her toward the exit. Before heading off completely, he called over his shoulder, “Bastien, Lavonna will take you and your friend to your beds. We’ll speak again in the morning. Early.”

As the couple left the room, Bastien and I were left with Lavonna and Rona. Rona’s expression was somber as she stared down at her hands folded on her lap. Silence engulfed us.

“Well,” Lavonna said, rising to her feet. “I’ll take you to your rooms, shall I?” Then she addressed Rona. “Are you coming too? You look tired, my love.”

Rona nodded and stood. She towered over even me, and I considered myself tall for a girl, at five foot ten. She was only just shorter than Bastien. I could hardly be surprised though, given her father’s height.

Bastien rose with her, as did I… only to realize my right leg—the injured one—had gone to sleep. I couldn’t move it at all at first, and stood still, waiting for the blood to trickle down through it. Bastien kindly offered his arm to me in support, and I hobbled alongside him once I was able to move again.

“What happened to your leg?” Lavonna asked, eyeing my bandaged ankle.

“I just, uh, sprained my ankle,” I said, kind of embarrassed to be drawing so much attention to myself in front of strangers, and at a time where there were far more serious matters to be thinking about.

“It happened during her escape from the hunters,” Bastien clarified.

Rona approached us, moving with the grace of a swan, and slid a hand through Bastien’s other arm. Then the four of us left the dining room. We passed along the corridor and reached a winding wooden staircase. Here Bastien allowed me to climb onto his back again, and he carried me up the narrow stairwell, the other two following behind us in single file. I was beginning to feel dizzy from the staircase’s twists and turns, but finally, reaching the top, we parted from the staircase and emerged in another hallway lined with doors.

“As you know,” Lavonna said, breaking the silence, “we are not exactly accustomed to having guests. But we have two quarters free, due to Emil, Teia and her sister leaving to visit Emil’s parents.”

“Teia and her sister?” Bastien asked, frowning. “Why would they accompany Emil?”

“Emil and Teia married last month,” Rona explained.

“Oh,” Bastien said softly. “I see.”

I had no idea who either of those people were, but the exchange gave me a glimpse into how distant the Blackhalls and Northstones actually were, in spite of how welcoming they were being now to Bastien.

Lavonna stopped outside the second to last door at the end of the corridor and pushed it open. Then she moved to the one next to it and pushed that open too.

“Well,” she said. “Take your pick.”

Bastien looked at me. I really didn’t care. “Uh, I’ll go with this one,” I said, pointing to the room on my right, simply because it was closest to me. I grabbed hold of the door handle and hobbled to it. I glanced from Rona to Lavonna and then to Bastien before offering a small smile and saying, “Have a good rest.”