Winnie was at the piano, trying to get Debussy’s Ballade to sound right. Cattail was on one of the plush, expensive sofas, eating handfuls of vegan cherry sours from a bowl Amy had left out.

“That’s pretty,” Cat offered, listening to Winnie play.

“Thank you,” Winnie said, not losing pace. “It isn’t quite right, though. I’m not hitting every note. I can’t remember how this goes, exactly.”

“Well, I don’t know the difference,” Cat said with a wry smile. “So it sounds perfect to me.”

“Cat,” Winnie asked, barely looking up from the keys, “what will you do now?”

“I don’t know. I’d like to see more of the city before I go home.”

“What will you do when you go home?”

“I don’t know,” Cat said again. “Live my life.”

“Well . . . how? College, maybe?” Winnie suggested hopefully. “Vocational school? Nurse’s training?”

Cat laughed. “None of that. I wish I could tell you about us, Winnie, but I can’t. If you knew, you’d understand.”

“Maybe,” Winnie said doubtfully.

Suddenly, they both recognized the hum of the ascending elevator. The lift doors dinged open in the hallway beyond the receiving room. Winnie kept playing, but she glanced at Cat. West wasn’t expected home for hours.

“Croft! Where are you, boy?!” It was a man’s voice, but rough and old and strange. Winnie didn’t recognize it at all.

A grizzled man stumped into view, leaning on a stick and wearing a fur throw. Winnie broke off her Ballade abruptly, then stood and came forward, making sure Cattail was behind her. Cat was their guest, a vulnerable foreign girl. She had to protect her from this . . . this vagrant.

“Can I help you?” Winnie demanded.

The man had brought along an older woman who was as calm as ice. She stood behind his shoulder expressionlessly. But the grizzled man was glaring at Winnie as if she’d spat in his face.

“Cat, girl,” he said in a strangled voice. “Is this the woman? Is this the woman Croft preferred to you?”

Winnie realized Cat had moved to stand beside her when Cat put her arms around Winnie’s shoulders. “She is, Elder. Don’t be angry at her. She doesn’t know about—anything.”

“No, she doesn’t know,” the old man said, his nostrils flaring. “Or she’d leave. Maybe I should show her the truth of her dear Mr. Croft.”

“Stone,” the older woman said restrainingly.

“Look at her!” Stone snapped, his gold-colored eyes narrowing. Winnie realized who he was now, who he must be. He was part of West’s family. He was the one who had brought Cattail here and demanded that West marry her. “She’s got no scent! She doesn’t smell like a sow.”

“Excuse me?” Winnie asked, incensed. “I’m not a pig!”

“Look at her eyes!” Stone continued, ignoring her. “Human eyes! Blue eyes! What does he see in this girl? Hyssop, look at this girl and tell me Cat isn’t three times the woman she is!”

“Cat is a lovely sow, but I won’t say the girl has no attractions. She has a beautiful body, Stone,” Hyssop—the older woman—said calmly. “She’s all hips and thighs.”

“Aye, and she has no smell of the wilds about her at all, like a woman should,” Stone growled, fixing Winnie with a terrifyingly cold stare. “No smell of peppergrass or sea salt or black currant. No.” His eyes narrowed. “She only smells like beeswax. She smells weak.”

“No, not beeswax,” Hyssop corrected. “She smells like honey. She smells sweet.”

“It’s honey,” Cat agreed, bewildering Winnie. “Her scent’s delicious, Elder. You can see why West enjoys it, can’t you?”

“No, I can’t!” thundered Stone. “No grizzly man worth his skin would take a frail, mewling human woman over a strong, beautiful sow of His! Own! Kind!” He slammed the floor with his stick for each word. “He can’t be allowed to mate with this girl!”

By this time, Winnie was scared. She put her hand on one of Cattail’s encircling arms. “You need to go, or I’ll call security.”

“Security?” For the first time, Stone seemed to hear something she’d said. “You want protection from me? Let me show you what you need protection from, then! Let me show you, girl!”

“Elder, don’t!”

“Stone, wait—”

The old man threw down his stick, threw off his cloak, threw his arms wide—and changed.

He changed.

Winnie barely realized she was screaming. All she knew was that hot, sick terror had flooded her body. All she knew was that she was seeing something awful, something impossible.

Stone’s face broadened and lengthened until it was a great plate of a face with a muzzle. Hair burst out all over his body as he exploded in size, a huge hump growing behind his neck, a barrel chest forming between his thick, clawed arms. He was on all fours—he suddenly had four legs. He bared sharp teeth from behind dark lips. Before she knew it, she was standing face-to-face with a grizzly bear.

A grizzly bear.

The bear reared up onto its hind legs, its silver-striped head touching the ceiling. It snorted, it huffed, it blew—and then it roared, a hoarse, deep-throated roar that went right through her whole quivering body. The sound was so horrifying that her heart tightened like a fist.

“Elder!” Cat was crying. “Stop! You’re scaring her!”

“Stone! Enough of this madness! Enough! You’ve let the secret out yourself!” the woman was shouting.

Winnie didn’t mean to.

It’d never happened before.

But the room tilted, and she fainted.