She woke with her Hounds around her. Brendan, Masha, Neve, Lyon, and Quince, dressed for the hunt and laughing, bows and axes at their sides and blood on their clothes.

“The game is so much better in the lowlands,” Masha was saying as the Huntress opened her eyes. “And their hunters are lazy. We should raid this spring.”

“You always want to raid,” said Neve, polishing the head of her axe. “Why raid when we could just hunt?”

“If we raid, they will be afraid. Then we can start tithing them for protection,” said Lyon. “Game and grain. Think of how fat the horses will be.”

“Think of how fat I will be.” Brendan smacked his stomach. “What say you, Isolde?”

The Huntress looked at Quince, who had not yet spoken. There was something wrong with her face. She was grinning a wolf’s grin and her teeth were too sharp.

“Quince,” the Huntress said, but as she spoke her Hound faded, and where she had stood was the alpha female of the pack, her tongue lolling over ivory jaws. The wolf snarled once, then trotted out of the room.

“Wait,” she called after her, but the wolf did not heed her, and the fire sputtered in the grate, casting strange shadows on the wall.