Night fell quickly, and Sabine stopped by the cages to make sure the children had been fed and were ready to sleep. They’d been up late for the Moon Festival and would have catching up to do.

“Nicola! Marceline! Luna!” The three little weregoats were her favorites to wrangle, not that she would ever admit it. And not that she was any less fond of the fox brothers and the quiet little raccoon twins. But Nicola followed her everywhere, and even as a human, butted her head against Sabine’s legs in a way that made her feel fiercely protective love.

“Did you eat?” Sabine asked.

“Yes!” the goats said, three voices braiding into one.

“Not enough,” said the fox named Sebastian.

“You ate half of mine,” his brother, Simon, said.

“I was hungry!” They started swatting each other until Sabine peeled them apart and sat cross-legged in the grass, putting one boy on each knee.

“Will you tell us a story?” Luna asked.

Sabine’s heart sank a little bit. She wasn’t much for stories. She’d heard them told, but they were never about the likes of her. If there was a bear in a story, it was an animal. Dangerous. She knew that children liked them, but she couldn’t even think of how to tell one. She was only ever able to think of true things that had happened to her, which she’d disguise a bit and pass them off.

“Once there was a girl,” she said.

“Why is it always a girl?” Simon complained.

“It isn’t always,” Nicola said. “Sometimes there’s a boy. Sometimes a girl. Sometimes both. Sometimes neither.”

“Do you want a story or not?” Sabine said.

The children stopped their squabbling, and Sabine told them about a bear who kissed a princess and then turned into a puff of smoke.

“Did she ever turn back?” Nicola asked.

Sabine shook her head.

“Ugh, I hate that story,” Marceline said.

Sabine laughed. “It’s not my favorite either. But every time you smell smoke, you know the bear is near. She’ll always keep you safe.”

“I guess,” Nicola said.

“Bedtime, children.” Sabine slid the droopy-headed fox boys off her lap and led them one by one to their cages. As much as she hated locking them in, she was also resolved to do so on a night like this. There were always men in the world who thought it great sport to threaten and harass weres. The cages kept children imprisoned, but they also kept those men away from them.

When she’d turned the last key and blown the last kiss, she headed into the kingdom itself, keeping to the darkest shadows. She’d watched Ursula and her brother on the bridge after the ceremony. Sabine had been tempted to follow Ursula back to her castle, but she knew she couldn’t. Not after what had happened in the woods. She’d left the cottage not long after Ursula, noting the first yellows and reds of fall had found the edges of the leaves. They looked like fire. She felt on fire. Her face where Albrecht had cut her burned. Her lips, her skin, everywhere Ursula had touched. Fire burned. Fire destroyed.

Sabine had known it would be this way. It was one reason she hadn’t kissed Ursula before. She’d kissed other girls, some were, some single aspect. She didn’t love any of them, even though she loved kissing. The taste of it. The softness. The way she could breathe in someone else’s breath, feeling them and their singularity from the deepest part of her. No two people kissed alike. No two people tasted alike. And she liked how it made her feel, outside and in. There had been no risk to kissing these girls. Some she knew, some she didn’t, not really. But it was always understood between them that those kisses were petals plucked, not seeds planted.

That was not how she felt about Ursula, and she’d had years to work it out. Years since that day they’d met. Since she’d mortified herself by putting on the dress and shoes of a princess, pretending to be one. She knew better, even then. The pretty dress was a distraction, the thing meant to take your eyes off the ugly truth. Everything wrong about the world came from that very place Ursula lived. The very thing Ursula was. There could be no justice in a world ruled by a single person, a single family. That was the world that sent weres to cages. The world that tore families apart.

Sabine could barely remember life before her first cage. She was lucky; most weres couldn’t remember any. But Sabine had been older. Her parents had come as merchants from afar. They’d refused to cage Sabine. And before the family could leave, her parents had been taken. To the dungeon, she now knew. She waited for them to come for her. That had been the last thing her mother had said to her. A promise. We’ll see you soon.

Sabine had to stop walking. Had to catch her breath. She put her hands on her knees and waited until the feeling of falling passed. None of that was Ursula’s fault. Ursula was a baby when it happened, even younger than Sabine. But it was the world Ursula was born into. A world Ursula accepted. A world Ursula believed in.

It would have been easier had Sabine not been in love with her. Had she never kissed her. But now that she had, it felt like another promise waiting to be broken.

Hood up and head down so that no one would get a good look at her eyes, she slipped into a tavern. It smelled of sweat, ale, smoke, and men. She wasn’t worried. Anyone who noticed her, who threatened or harassed her for being a were, would soon regret it. She never made trouble herself. Nor did she flee in the face of it.

She sat sipping a cider and eavesdropping, and as the night wore on, learned what she was after. The kingdom was split. Ursula would rule the west and Albrecht, the east. Sabine fought an impulse to leave right then and console Ursula, who had to be disappointed at the news. But she resisted. If she sat at Ursula’s table and shared a meal, if she went into Ursula’s cage and held her close all night, she would lose herself. Her integrity. Her belief that a better world was one without a crown.

Ursula was her best friend. The person she loved. But she couldn’t have her without losing her soul. And as much as it hurt to live with the memory of that kiss, she had it. She would always have it. A scar no one but she could see, running all the way around her heart.

She finished her drink and was about to leave when a man burst in, his face flushed in excitement. The king was gathering forces, he announced. Rallying men to unify the kingdom behind him. He had weapons. Was promising gold. And was saying things that Sabine knew could not be true … that Ursula had plans to give special privileges to werefolk. To lift them up above single-aspect humans. Never once had Ursula said anything of the sort. She’d said she didn’t want to separate families anymore, but that was hardly a privilege.

When Sabine realized she was gripping her stein so tight her fingers hurt, she pushed it away, stood, and headed toward the door.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A man moved in front of her, large with hands the size of loaves.

Someone behind her pulled down her hood.

Another leaned close, noting the rings around her irises. “Would you look at the frisser trying to sneak out of here.”

“Let me pass,” she said. “I’ve done you no wrong.”

“The wrong’s that you exist in the first place,” Bread Hands said.

“Look at its face,” another man said. “That’s the one the king was about to kill. Should we finish the job?”

“We should bring it to him. A gift,” Bread Hands said.

She shoved past him, trying to make it through the door. “Let me go.”

And then there was laughter, and hands on her, and they were not gentle, and she pushed her way through the doorway and into the night. In the cold air, beneath the plump moon, she let out the bear. Her clothing ripped. Her shoes fell away. She eyed the men who’d followed and surrounded her, deciding which was closest to her size. She’d save him for last and take his clothes.

It took longer than she thought, fighting each man who dared step out of that pub. She was surprised they kept coming at her, surprised that every last one of them thought he’d be the one to defeat her. It was funny and it was irritating. Could they not see who she was? What she was capable of? Did they really think their tiny man hands were a match for her paws?

They did.

She showed them otherwise. As she dressed in the clothing of the last man she’d fought, she caught a whiff of smoke. It made her think of Ursula. Made her think the story she’d told the children had become true. The scent thickened and she knew it was no figment of a story visiting. The kingdom was burning. She stepped out of the clothes she’d just taken and took her bear form once more.

The farm district was engulfed by the time she reached it. Ursula’s castle too. Sabine stood in the darkness watching it, terrified Ursula was inside. If she was, she was lost. Sabine couldn’t imagine that had happened. Ursula was too capable. The mere thought of a world without Ursula was also unimaginable. That would be a world without the sky. It would come undone.

Sabine turned around to check on the children. The cages of the adult weres stood empty, every last one. No doubt all had gone to fight, even the elders. The children remained in theirs, sleeping deeply the way only the very young can do. She wanted to take them someplace safe, but she didn’t know where that was. The forest, probably.

But for now, as much as it sickened her, they were better off in their cages. She left them behind for the time being. She’d return for them after she fought off Albrecht’s men. Their cries for unity were lies. They didn’t want unity. They wanted the end of weres. She wouldn’t fight for a throne or anyone sitting on one, not even Ursula. But for her people? She’d lay down her life. She filled her lungs with air that tasted of smoke and ash. And then she ran toward the fray.