The figure at the window turned out to be nothing more than a startled deer bolting back into the tree line, and Magnus's dry laugh, once he confirmed it, did little to slow the pounding of Elena's heart. Still, he sent her home before full dark with a warning ringing in her ears, trust carefully, and trust slowly, and above all, tell no one what you now know until the blood moon has come and gone.
She kept that promise for exactly one day.
The trouble started the following morning with raised voices in the pack armory, a converted stone building near the training grounds where Ashwood stored its weapons and border supplies. By the time Elena heard about it secondhand from a frightened kitchen girl, the story had already grown teeth. Someone had broken into the armory overnight. A crate
