<Anything?> he asked when he joined Blair and Elliot in the shadows of the customer parking lot.

<Montgomery is still awake and sitting on the porch,> Blair reported. <Vlad said the Sierra is awake too. That Cyrus and his mate haven’t left their den this evening. A little while ago, they were either fighting or mating—he couldn’t tell which—but there are no sounds coming from them now.>

<Simon?>

<Jester?> The Coyote was supposed to be at the Green Complex, asleep in his own den.

<The girls at the lake want to know why you asked Nyx to watch over Meg tonight.>

A breeze suddenly ruffled his fur. Blair and Elliot looked at him in surprise.

<I promised Meg we would watch the Sierra tonight, but she was itchy earlier and I didn’t want her to be alone,> he told Jester.

<Ah. I can sleep on Meg’s porch.>

With all the windows open to let in the cooler night air, Jester would be able to hear if Meg got up in the night—or opened a dresser drawer. He would alert Nyx, if she didn’t understand the significance of that sound. <Thanks.>

Nothing else to do, so Simon and the others settled down to keep watch.

• • •

Shortly after daybreak, before most of the humans were awake, a taxi pulled up in front of the stone apartment building.

The Wolves and the Sanguinati watched the Sierra carry luggage to the curb, watched the taxi driver quietly load the carryalls into the trunk. They watched her lead her pups to the taxi and tuck them in the backseat. They watched her return to the building just long enough to close the outer door very quietly.

They watched the taxi drive away.

<Can you follow her, find out where she goes?> Simon asked Air when she ruffled his fur.

<Why?>

<So I can tell Meg what happened to the Sierra. So she knows why she was itchy.> And to tell Montgomery and Miss Twyla, but that wouldn’t be important to the Elementals.

<I will follow.>

Lights were on in Nadine’s den. In a few minutes, she would come over to A Little Bite to start her baking.

Kowalski stepped out on the top porch of the two-family house across the street, yawning and rubbing his head but looking around in a way that made Simon think the human wasn’t as sleepy as he appeared. Had Kowalski heard the taxi and come out to investigate? Or did he do this every morning?

Kowalski spotted the Wolves who were watching him and froze. After a moment, he raised a hand in greeting.

Simon raised a front paw in acknowledgment but didn’t add a friendly arroo. No reason to wake up everyone yet.

Vlad, in smoke form, flowed across Crowfield Avenue and joined the Wolves.

<Montgomery is awake,> he said.

Quiet voices in Miss Twyla’s efficiency apartment. Simon eased to the edge of the parking lot and cocked his head. Radio. Maybe television. Ah. Weather report. As if a human knew more about weather than the girls at the lake.

Time to go home and catch a quick nap. He had a feeling there would be a lot of howling from the humans today.

Dear Douglas,

Here in Brittania, it’s business as usual, which, for us humans, feels surreal. Fishing boats go out and bring back a catch. Hunters trade some goods in order to enter the wild country and bring back a deer or two to sell at market. While we aren’t receiving the same quantities of foodstuffs from Thaisia, ships are coming in to our harbors with needed cargo, the manifest carrying both the signature and seal of the harbormaster overseeing the point of origin as well as the signature of the terra indigene assigned to approve any shipment of food. We’re even receiving shipments from the human territories in Afrikah and Felidae, as well as merchandise from Tokhar-Chin. No one mentions Cel-Romano. It’s like there is a big hole in the world that we’re all working around as it fills in and takes a different shape.

Some Cel-Romano refugees have made it to coastal villages on the continent—human places that were established in the wild country outside the Alliance of Nations and have been allowed to exist for generations. The refugees call the war the Destruction of Cel-Romano and the Alliance of Nations. The Others I’ve talked to call it the Thwarted Human Invasion of the Wild Country. A truth seen through different eyes. The invaders were not only stopped; they were hamstrung so that they will have no time for anything but survival.

While that is true of the cities with factories that made the weapons of war, the country villages, especially those along the original border between Cel-Romano and the wild country, celebrated the return of most of their sons and are living much as they had before the war. There is more wariness, more concern about provoking an attack, but the same can be said for the people in Brittania who deal with the Others.

Recently I met one of the terra indigene who is considered a historian and scholar. I can’t tell you what kind he is because I only saw him in his human form and he didn’t offer a name that indicated his form or gard. He showed me a map he claimed was five hundred years old. The map showed human places I’d never heard of—places that had once been great civilizations, until humans forgot the world wasn’t theirs to claim. He told me remnants of those civilizations still exist, with statues that were great works of art standing sentinel in pastures. The surviving people live in isolated communities on the land that wasn’t reclaimed by the wild country, coming together for major celebrations that provide an opportunity to trade merchandise and arrange marriages. They live simply, and few humans in other parts of the world even know of their existence anymore.