“Sorry to pull you out of there, but I didn’t really want to dance with the werewolves,” he said. “You all right? I didn’t suffocate you or anything, did I?”

“Not quite.” I rubbed the front of my neck, where the collar of my shirt had dug into the skin, and shook my head. “I need you to go back and get the girls. Please. We can’t leave them there with Cooper in the area, there’s no telling what he’ll do when they go rowing back to shore.”

“In a minute.” Basil crossed his arms, looking at me flatly. “Why weren’t you shooting, huh? I know you humans and your guns. It’s cute, how you’ve made up for a total lack of natural defenses by coming up with a few hundred unnatural ones. You should have been filling that arsehole with bullets the second you figured out he was coming for you and the girls. What gives?”

“I . . . my family believes that everything has a right to live,” I said. “We just try to keep things as fair as possible. To smooth out the edges where we collide with one another.”

“Wow.” Basil shook his head. “I mean, wow. I knew humans were inherently fucked up, and I thought the Thirty-Six Society were top of the heap there. I mean, they can look at folks like me—just folks, yeah? Just trying to get along, maybe have a little fun, maybe find a nice billabong that doesn’t already belong to a bunyip or a croc too big for eating, settle down, have a family—and think that we’re monsters. That’s pretty screwy. But you lot! You look at everything and think ‘that has a right to live, even if it’s going to eat me.’ Screw that. You have a right to defend your species. You have a right to keep breathing. There’s a middle ground between ‘everything’s a monster’ and ‘everything has a right to live except for me.’”

I blinked at him slowly before asking, “So next time, you think I should shoot?”

“The man flat out said he’d been infecting humans to get them on his side,” said Basil. “That means he’s taking things that are human and making them into things that aren’t human. You can be as nice a fellow as you want to be, but I don’t think you should sit idly by while your species gets replaced. That’s not being nice. That’s being stupid.”

“So noted,” I said. “Now will you please go get the girls?”

“I’ll be right back,” he said. “Try not to get eaten by a bunyip because you think it needs a square meal, a’right?” He turned and lumbered back into the swamp.

I leaned back against the trunk of the tree I was seated in, resisting the urge to close my eyes and think. Basil was right: I’d been so interested in confirming whether or not the werewolves were still intelligent in their changed forms that I hadn’t considered that I’d been essentially baiting four large apex predators while holding nothing but a handgun. I had killed werewolves before. Knowing that they weren’t just dumb beasts shouldn’t have changed things—or if it did, it should have made me even more enthusiastic about killing them. Werewolves that could plan and execute complex maneuvers were terrifying, and they couldn’t be allowed to exist. So why had I hesitated?

It wasn’t like my family didn’t understand the need to kill things for the sake of the human race, however much we disliked doing it. Grandma and Sarah were the only “good” cuckoos we knew of. All others came with a permanent order to shoot on sight, unless they did something to indicate that they, too, might be capable of showing things like mercy and affection. We knew there were monsters in the world, real monsters, not things like gorgons or bunyip or yowie that inherited that title from urban legends and folklore about them killing people for fun. We knew that sometimes, monsters had to be stopped. So why had I hesitated?

Riley’s voice echoed in my head, calling me “Covenant boy,” talking about how much they didn’t need me or my family’s teachings. Just like that, I had my answer.

I had hesitated because I didn’t want to be what he thought I was. On some level, I had been willing to let myself be seriously hurt to prove that point. I wasn’t Covenant. My parents raised me better than that. I understood mercy. And mercy was the thing that was likely to get me killed.

“Oh, I can already tell I’m going to love having in-laws,” I muttered.

The sound of sloshing alerted me to something approaching through the swamp. I tensed, turning my head toward the sound, and was relieved to see the great green form of Basil come slogging through the trees, hauling the small boat belonging to the Tanner sisters behind him. All three of them were there. Jett pulled her head out of my crotch and barked, tail beginning to wag as she saw Raina. At least someone was having a good day, even if we still needed to check her for infection.

Raina was in the middle of the boat with her arms around Gabby, who was crumpled against her sister and sobbing, face buried in Raina’s shoulder. I fought the urge to wince at the sight of such casual contact between someone who was almost definitely infected and someone who wasn’t. Gabby hadn’t been infected long enough to have changed, and lycanthropy didn’t spread through tears. Most werewolves didn’t take a lot of time to cry.

Shelby was at the front of the boat, standing with one foot on the stubby prow to counterbalance the rest of her body. She had a gun in her hand, and was watching the swamp warily. I smiled at the sight of her. I couldn’t help myself. I might not be thrilled by the idea of in-laws, but they were a package deal with Shelby . . . and I was more than thrilled by the idea of her. No, that wasn’t right. The idea of her was pleasant enough. The reality of her, on the other hand, was worth moving mountains for.

“I see you managed to survive sitting alone for five minutes,” said Basil, once he was close enough that he didn’t have to shout. “Anything interesting happen?”

“Nothing tried to eat me. I’ll call that a win.” I leaned forward, waving my free hand. “Hello, the boat. Is everything all right down there?”

“Not in the slightest,” said Shelby. Her face was fixed in funereal mode. It made me want to put my arms around her and tell her everything was going to be all right now, that we had solved all our problems and were going to go live happily ever after. It was a pity that both of us would know I was lying. “Gabby’s been bit.”

Behind her, Gabby gave a convulsive sob and burrowed even deeper into her sister’s arms. Raina raised her head to look at me, but didn’t say anything. She just narrowed her eyes, clearly waiting for me to respond.