Chapter 2
The reindeer encampment was dark save a few sparse fires where the deer huddled, sharing pinecone-sap cakes. Smoke never reached the sky, dissipated by the canvas stretched across the bows of firs. It trapped heat and kept the starlight out.
“We rigged up some hot showers, while you were gone on the last mission.” The whisper fluttered into Pembroke’s left ear.
“You were gone for so long, and everyone had teleported back. Some of the deer were worried,” was pressed into his ear by a wet muzzle to his right.
“But we weren’t.”
“No, not us.”
Their warm breath poured into his ears. Pembroke sniffed, straining to identify them with his pared-down human nose.
He caught their musk; swirling together above his lips. Pembroke’s nostrils flared. The whiff of a storm. Unmistakable—li
