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But why?

“Why would anything care about her?”

“You don’t know anything but you come traipsing here, dragging her with you.Thisis why I told her to never get herself wrapped up in the problems of fools—it always ends badly and I knew she would end up paying the price.” He reached again, and this time I didn’t move away.

I didn’t know how to save her, and I was at least smart enough to let someone else try.

He stroked his hand over her cheek. “She’s burning up. If I didn’t sense her pain, if I didn’t come here right now, she’d have been dead within ten minutes.” He leaned forward, his lips pressing to hers.

At first, I nearly knocked him away. She wasn’t even awake, so how dare he kiss her like that? From what little I knew, even if he saw her that way, she hadn’t said or done anything that indicated she felt the same.

Except, just when I went to react, I noted something blue floating between their lips. It was like a fine mist, sparkles in it, like so much of what was here. The color matched his eyes and her hair, and it passed from his lips to hers.

The more she breathed in whatever that blue was, the less she shook, the more stable she seemed.

After a long, tense moment, she started to cough, shifting so much that she nearly fell from my arms. I guided her down to the stone floor, and she coughed so hard she gagged, then spat out something made of that teal color.

It shimmered on the floor, thick and smelling strongly of the venom. However, just as quickly, it fizzed and dissolved until only a damp spot on the ground remained.

Knot crouched, balancing on the balls of his feet as he rubbed his hand on her back. “Better?”

His voice had changed, from the rough threat he’d offered to me, and from the gentle tone he’d used with her when she’d been unconscious, to something much shallower and more joking.

Grey pressed her palms against the ground and lifted her head, looking as though she hadn’t just been moments from death. Her gaze found Knot, and a crinkle beside her eyes said her feelings about his appearance were complicated at best. “You always show up at exactly the right time.”

He smiled. “It’s part of my charm. Now, little crow, you want to explain to me just what the fuck you’re doinghere?”

By this point, the others had gotten back up, circling around. They had to see that he’d helped her as well, which was the only reason they weren’t going for round two.

Plus, round one hadn’t gone that well.

Even Galen had pulled his focus from the water, from the chaos in his mind to Grey and Knot.

“I told you the Weres are sick.Youwere the one who told me how to get that book.”

“I told you so you knew what to expect, not so you could try to change it. You needed to know it’s happened before, that it’ll happen again.” He shook his head and flicked her forehead. “You’re always taking the wrong lesson away from every situation. You know that? Instead of realizing that you’re helpless, you decide that means you should come here?”

She swiped at his hand but missed when he pulled back. “I told you I wasn’t going to just let it happen. And besides, isnowthe time to get mad? We made it, didn’t we?” She gestured at the pool. “There it is—the source of the power!”

Knot turned his head to peer at the water, froze for a moment, then started to laugh. “You thinkthat’sthe source?”

“The story said it was a lake.”

“The story is a fable, Little Crow, it isn’t meant to be taken literally. That’s just a puddle. Sure, if a Were goes swimming, they’ll probably feel pretty good, but isn’t the source.”

“So what is?”

Knot turned back toward Grey, looking straight into her eyes without flinching. “The source is just past that doorway. Think carefully about the old stories, about what they all say created Spirits.”

I knew, of course. The Natures hadalwaysknown the truth, even if we didn’t like it, if we tried to ignore it.

Knot smiled, though the expression was tense, as though it hid the deeper feelings beneath. “That’s right. Just that way is a god, the one who created the Weres, and I really would suggest we not wake him.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I wasn’t sure exactly what had happened after I’d passed out, but seeing Knot was both welcome and annoying.

He often managed to show up at the exact moment everything was going to shit. I appreciated it, of course—I hadn’t wanted to die from whatever that was that had infected me—but I also knew damn well that if he wasn’t always fuckinggone,he might have kept this all from getting so bad.