I spent most of the day limping along after Mercy, with Henry trailing silently behind us. I couldn’t tell if he was meant to prevent me from escaping or to guard me from all the curious pack members who occasionally appeared out of the woodwork like ghosts. There didn’t seem to be a lot of members of the pack in the giant warehouse they’d turned into apartments and living quarters, but the ones who appeared out of nowhere definitely fit the description at least two of the wolves had given me—misfits and outcasts.

I didn’t try to be friendly, though I didn’t bother with the ice-queen mask. It would have taken far too much energy to keep up that level of disdain for a whole day. I needed to save it up for when I had to face Evershaw again—if I had to. He wasn’t anywhere around that they would tell me, and Mercy even let me into his quarters so I could look around for a hint of how he’d been poisoned.

The suite where he lived was easily two or three times the size of the expansive guest suite I’d been given, with smaller apartments connected to it so guests could stay in his quarters but with their own space. It made me wonder who he invited to stay, since none of the other rooms looked like they’d been disturbed even to be cleaned.

He had terrible taste, which I could have guessed just from the way he dressed. Everything was dark wood and heavy and masculine, with no real colors or textures except cream. Dark and cream, dark and white, brown and white, a surprise splash of gray and white. The place gave me the hives, although there was something else about it... I couldn’t explain it. It felt…familiar. Some of the uneasiness of wandering around the pack’s giant building uncoiled when I stepped across his threshold.

I checked for wards or other protections, or some hint of a charm that promoted relaxation, but there was nothing.

Mercy stared at me like I was going to do a trick any moment as I lingered in the doorway and ran my fingertips over the frame. She practically vibrated with the need to ask me questions, though I’d put a cap on how many she could ask in a given hour. She’d already used up nine of her ten, with twenty minutes to go. I glanced at her sideways and took pity. “Do you sense a difference between the hall and inside this room?”

“Should I?” she breathed, eyes wide. Without waiting for an answer, she leapt from the hall into the room, looked around, then launched herself into the hall. She repeated the leap enough times that it made me dizzy, and I caught her arm to shove her into the room.

“Sometimes you have to be quiet in order to hear, Mercy.” I rubbed my temples and exhaled, closing my eyes as I rested my hands on either side of the door frame. “Breathe. Wait for the air to speak to you.”

She breathed, all right. Breathed right in my ear. I searched for my patience and found just a tiny little shred left, so I didn’t haul off and hex her right there. I couldn’t find anything that signaled magic or ill intent, so I directed Mercy into the main living area. She knew her way around and started on the tour right away. “This is the kitchen, and the living room, and the formal dining room for when he has guests—even though he never has guests, and this is the bathroom, and that’s where Evershaw sleeps and his bathroom and closet, and—“

“Take a breath, Mercy,” Henry said. He shut the door behind us and leaned back against it. “Just let her look around.”

“Is there anywhere I’m not allowed?” I didn’t look at either of them, not wanting to break the concentration it took to See around me and search for any ill intent or bad magic.

Mercy took a breath but Henry beat her to it with a firm, “No. Go where you want. Touch whatever you need to.”

And Mercy sounded just a heartbeat away from giggling, but I couldn’t spare her more than a brief thought. I searched the main room and let the Sight guide me, tracing the angry red paths of Evershaw’s movements through the rooms. I followed the cooler orange drift of someone I thought might have been his cousin, the tall one who promised me a lot of money to save Evershaw’s life, and Mercy’s trails, which were—of course—pink and sparkly.

I smiled to myself, imagining how excited she’d be to learn she left a glittery pink wake behind her. There were faint marks in greens and yellows all throughout the quarters, but they seemed to correspond to a closet where I found vacuums and mops and other cleaning equipment.

“How many people clean in here? How frequently?”

Mercy hopped onto a stool near the bar-height kitchen island counter, still watching me closely. “Every couple of weeks, whenever the alpha is away or I can convince him it has to be vacuumed. He wouldn’t let anyone in here if I didn’t make him.”

I made a thoughtful noise and ignored the green trails, meandering over to where Mercy indicated Evershaw slept. Only his red path crossed the threshold. Interesting. Neither Mercy nor Henry followed me in, even after I looked back over my shoulder at them, and I almost held my breath as I proceeded on my own. The bedroom was large, with more of that ugly heavy furniture. He hadn’t made the bed and there were clothes overflowing from a hamper in the corner.

Typical.

Still, though, the place didn’t smell bad and instead there was a hint of vanilla in the air. It wasn’t unpleasant, just very masculine. After a lifetime living alone or with my mother, I wasn’t accustomed to places where men lived. Even when I’d dated more actively, I never stayed over at the guy’s place or let them stay over too long at mine. It was too much of a commitment to inhabit someone else’s space.

I started moving again, feeling the laser-focus of the two wolves in the living room after I’d paused, and focused on the Sight instead of a couple of books on the nightstand next to what was clearly his side of the bed. At least he had nice windows and a pretty good view of the city, although the heavy drapes were drawn and he’d shut out the world as much as possible.

Only he walked through the bedroom and his bathroom; there weren’t any hints of anyone else, which meant he’d been alone for at least three months. I wondered if he had mistresses or girlfriends, more from the morbid curiosity of the kind of woman who’d put up with a guy like him, and made my way back out to the living room. Mercy and Henry both looked at me expectantly, like I’d solve the whole thing right there, and I stared back at them.

Mercy couldn’t take the silence for more than a few seconds, bouncing on her toes. “Well?”

“Well what?” I frowned and looked around the living room once more. Something didn’t add up. He had an entire pack of people who’d followed him from somewhere, and the only people who ever entered his quarters was capped at less than five, at least a couple of whom were just there to clean.

“Did you find anything useful?” Henry retreated to the door.

“He needs to do laundry,” I said under my breath, waving at the bedroom behind me. I returned to one of the guest suites, opening the door to look inside, and the sadness of it all struck me rather deeply. It was a lot like my big empty house. If anyone Saw my house, they wouldn’t find anything but my footsteps throughout. Me and Cricket. I didn’t even have a maid to come in and clean.

I closed the guest room door and wandered into the middle of the living room, searching for something I couldn’t name. “It didn’t happen here. But...”

I trailed off, shaking my head, and turned to take one more look around.

“But what?” Mercy asked.

Henry headed for the door. “If it didn’t happen here, then we should go. He won’t want us to just hang out in here.”

“He’ll be fine,” Mercy said. She blocked me from following Henry, her eyes wide and bright. “But what? The poisoning didn’t happen here but something else did?”

I cleared my throat and leaned against the back of the ugly over-stuffed couch that looked perfect for napping. My legs ached suddenly and every part of me was cold. Something wasn’t right. “Something isn’t…something is wrong. Something is very wrong. You need to find him.”

Mercy’s eyes got even bigger, until I worried they’d fall right out of her head. “You mean—“

“Now,” I said. I clutched my stomach and barely held onto the couch, not wanting to fall to my knees in case I landed on some blisters, and Mercy was immediately next to me to keep me upright. Pain radiated from the burns and my stomach and my head, and I could barely keep my eyes open enough to find Henry in the bright red sparks in my vision. “Find him. It happened again. He’s been poisoned. Get him here immediately.”

Henry got a phone out and ran into the hall, disappearing and shouting at the same time. Movement erupted and more yells joined him in the hall, and Mercy dragged me to sit on one end of the couch so I wouldn’t fall.

“You can save him,” Mercy breathed. “You have to save him.”

“I’m not going to die today,” I told her. Or so I hoped. “So I’ll have to save him. Get him here fast. As fast as possible. Get…get me my bag. And lavender and sage and...” My thoughts drifted in static and pain, and for a flash, I was in Evershaw’s body, staring out a windshield as an SUV pulled up outside a big-ass building. I wrenched away, not wanting to share my thoughts with that guy for a second, and found Mercy staring at me with her mouth hanging open. I pressed my hands to my eyes and prayed they were pulling up to this big-ass building and not one on the other side of town. “They’re in a car. Get my bag. Fast.”

She hesitated, looking at me, and reached for my hand. “You’ll be okay? I’ll be back really fast.”

“I’ll be fine.” I almost choked on the words, since no one had bothered to ask whether I’d be okay for months and months. I closed my eyes and wished the room would stop spinning. “Go. Fast. Get him here. Neither of us has much time.”

My chest tightened and my breath hitched. Mercy raced off, calling to someone in the hall, then Henry hoisted me up so I was sitting upright on the couch instead of sprawled across the arm, and he kept me there as his attention fixated on the door. “They’re on the way, witch. You’ve got to stay awake.”

“I’m awake,” I muttered. “I’m just in a lot of pain. Mercy is getting my bag. I’ll need someone else to help fetch things if I’ve run out of the herbs I brought with me. I didn’t expect to be gone long enough to do two healings.” And I gave him a sideways look to remind him this was trouble of their own making.

He nodded, stuffing pillows under my arms so I wouldn’t list to the side, and retreated to the door to shout again. He gave instructions and cursed a lot, and then I blinked and Mercy was back in front of me with my bag and a pale face. “They’re bringing him in. He’s not good. You don’t look good, either. Are you sure it’s going to be okay?”

I wasn’t. I really wasn’t. I’d never experienced anything like it before. “Send someone to fetch Smith, just in case I am unable to save him. My life is tied to your alpha’s, Mercy. I’ll do everything I can just to save myself.”

Her eyes shone with unshed tears, and she squeezed my hands tight enough my bones bent. “Please. You have to.”

I wanted to reassure her, I really did. And I even took a breath to do so, but then a scrum of bodies barreled through the doorway and through to the bedroom, and shouting voices overwhelmed the stillness, and then Henry picked me up and carried me in after them.