I scrolled through to find Ben’s number, hit the text command—hesitated. Make it quick, make it clear. What to say? I had too much I needed to say, and I froze. He’d never forgive me for this.

My least favorite news stories were the ones about how someone is in a horrible situation, knows they’re about to die, but has enough time to call a loved one and say good-bye. An expedition leader trapped in a storm on Mount Everest. Passengers on a hijacked airplane. What do you say in that situation? What can you possibly say? I breezed past those stories because they started me thinking about what I would say, and I could never come up with anything. Is “I love you” enough?

I wasn’t going to die. I was going to get out of this. That was what I’d say, I’d tell him I was going to get out of this.

Im ok. battling evil. i hope. see you soon. I love you.

Send, send, send. I resisted punching the button over and over. Instead, hand trembling, I watched the animated thingy turn, and finally text appeared: message sent.

I held the phone between my hands, clasped prayerlike, and brought them to my forehead. Please, let the message get through, please let him understand. I prayed to the gods I knew: Xiwangmu, random fairy queens, and maybe even God—Rick’s God, the one that had inspired him to do good for five hundred years. Not the God who would damn him for what he was. Too many gods to choose from, and I didn’t know if it would do any good, but it couldn’t hurt.

The sun was setting. Four, five o’clock maybe. Darkness would fall soon, and the gang would gather for the next ritual. And something would happen. One way or another, something would happen. I watched for a long time. The slanted light turned the crystalline winter sky silver. The ice in the air stung my nose, but it didn’t hurt. It felt clean. I couldn’t seem to breathe deep enough, to take it all in. Or maybe I thought I could store the air and continue to breathe it when I went back into the mine, into the stone. I could already smell the dense, brimstone stink of the torches.

I’d think about this clean winter air instead.

I left the phone sitting on a clear space of rock. Maybe Ben would find it. This would be the last night in the old mine. By tomorrow, this would all be over, and it would all seem worthwhile. I hoped.

Chapter 19

I HAD NEVER met a were-frog, or even heard of one existing—all the lycanthropic beings I knew about were hard-core predators. So I considered the tale of the Frog Prince with some skepticism. Especially because of all the different versions, the one where the princess kisses the frog to return him to his unfroggy state is new. In earlier versions, like Grimm’s, she grabs him by the leg and smashes him against a wall. How this is meant to promote virtuous behavior, if that’s really what it’s supposed to promote, I’m not entirely sure. Maybe the message is, “If he tries to chat you up so hard he gets annoying, don’t be afraid to deck the bugger.” At its heart, though, the story is another iteration of Beauty and the Beast—one must consider a person’s inner beauty before judging the outer appearance. You cannot fall in love solely with the way someone looks.

On the other hand, maybe it’s all about how kissing is magic.

Sometimes in the mornings after running on full-moon nights, Ben woke me with a kiss, and I imagined in my still half-dreaming mind that his kiss was what transformed me, drawing my human self from my Wolf’s body. The human touch, the human contact was my anchor. What other creature in the world had such sensitive, pliable lips as ours, and what other purpose could such lips have but kissing?

*   *   *

NEAR AS I could figure, I had been in the mine for four days. I couldn’t imagine what Ben was thinking now. This kind of thing had happened before—me, trapped in the wilderness, unable to answer calls and in trouble. Would he figure that I’d come out of it okay like I had before? I hoped that my message would reach him, that he’d found my trail and was on his way. On the other hand, if this situation was on a track to end badly, I wanted him as far away from here as possible.

My world was collapsing into a small space filled with my breathing and my fears.

We fight to defend ourselves. When cornered. That’s the best way. Less risky than attacking. Nothing to gain here.

That was the Wolf’s calculation—would the energy you’d expend hunting and killing the food exceed what you’d get from eating the food? If so, break off the hunt. Better to run than fight, when the odds were against you. But maybe sometimes the best defense is a good offense? Wolf was anxious and had every reason to be. I wanted to pace, to wear holes in the stone under my feet. It wouldn’t help at all, so I didn’t. I curled up tighter.

This isn’t right.

I knew it wasn’t. On paper, the rituals Kumarbis and Zora had concocted seemed great. Find Roman, destroy him safely from thousands of miles away. But we weren’t as safe as they pretended. If Roman knew he was being hunted, he wouldn’t sit back and wait for us. We were in danger.

Staying’s not worth it. We’re not protecting our pack, here.

But maybe we could do more. Protect more than our pack. We could protect everyone Roman wanted to hurt.

Not our concern. Must return to the pack.

We could make sure Antony’s death meant something—and wasn’t that bullshit? Did I think I could trade in lives, decide what would make the sacrifice of a life worthwhile?

Wolf was right. So was I. We were gnawing our own tail, going back and forth over this. But I stayed underground, and waited.

Back in the antechamber, Sakhmet and Enkidu were still asleep. I lay down near them and curled up for warmth and comfort. However tired I felt, I couldn’t sleep.

I could almost smell Ben, and the memory made my eyes sting. I wondered if I would ever see him again—and that was the first time I wondered, instead of being sure. I scrubbed my face, to banish the thought. I would see him, I would I would. I want to run.

*   *   *

I STARTED awake, surprised that I’d been asleep in the first place. I was in the antechamber, curled up, arms over my head. Enkidu and Sakhmet were awake, folding sandwich wrappers, and noises were invading. Footsteps approached.

Stumbling to a crouch, my back to the wall, I blinked my way to awareness. This still felt like a dream, the wavering light of a flickering candle in a sheltered lantern causing movement all around me, shadows of the stone itself dancing and jerking. Dressed in her white tunic and all her ritual finery, Zora held a candle. Priestlike, Kumarbis followed her, his hands clasped before him, his expression serene. He was otherworldly, in a homespun white cassock draped around him and belted with a black sash. His stance was straight and proud, statuesque. His gnarled hand pressed over his chest, and he bowed his head, a stately gesture. I gaped; I couldn’t help but feel awed. I saw this from his point of view: two thousand years of effort and planning come to this. He had spent centuries seeking out his avatars, his wizards and would-be gods. A million stories lay in that history, a dozen failed attempts, dozens of people identified, indoctrinated, brought into the cult—and what had happened to them? Even if I could get Kumarbis to talk to me candidly, I’d never get all the stories.