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“I sense that it has protection magic,” Mom said. “I would be interested to consult other elders and maybe our wise wolf about it. There’s great power bound up within it. Maybe it can send its magic out across many miles.”

“We only need it to use it across the bed.”

Mom flexed her bandaged hand, lifting a finger to prod it. Iopened my mouth to warn her it might zap her, but its power flared, and the silver light I’d hoped for came from the mushroom cap.

My hope surged back to life. Maybe itwouldcure her.

Behind me, Duncan paced. Distracted by the artifact, I’d forgotten to keep an eye on him.

Faint magic whispered into the room, raising the hair on the back of my neck. One of Duncan’s clawed hands rose to his forehead. Using his heel, he cupped that scar. His hand blocked the orange glow, but I doubted that gesture could negate the power of the call. Radomir knew the bipedfuris was out and wanted Duncan to return to his quest, to serving him.

I clenched my jaw, wanting to find Radomir and put an end to all that.

The silver light intensified, pulling my gaze back. It flowed from the artifact and toward… my Mom’s hand. The one wrapped with a bandage. Its power poured into the spot.

“It tingles,” Mom said with awe. “Such power.”

Feeling defeat rather than awe, I sank to my knees beside the bed. Unless Mom hadhandcancer, I didn’t think this was going to be the answer.

She sighed with some relief, letting her head fall back against her pillows.

Something stirred under her nightshirt, startling me. A glow that matched that of the artifact seeped out through the material. The talisman? Or her medallion?

The slender chains around her neck shifted, and both medallion and talisman, the two chains entwined, slipped out from under her shirt. I couldn’t tell which was responsible for the new glow. Maybe both were, their magic activated by the proximity of the artifact.

They lifted into the air, defying gravity. I gaped as they werepulled across Mom’s nightshirt and toward the glowing mushroom, somehow drawn to it.

Mom noticed and tried to tuck the jewelry back into her shirt. “Is that thing magnetic?”

She tilted her chin toward the mushroom artifact, its glow now fading.

I started to shake my head but remembered Duncan experimenting on the case. He’d used one of his magnets to attract what had then been an unknown-to-us object inside.

“It might be,” I said. “It’s at least got some metal in it that’s attracted by magnets.”

“These must too.” Mom released her medallion and the talisman, no longer fighting their attempt to be pulled toward the artifact.

Something else distracted her. Her hand.

She flexed her fingers, then marveled, “It doesn’t hurt anymore.”

I smiled and murmured, “That’s good,” though I had a feeling the artifact hadn’t done anything to heal the greater issue. Maybe it didn’t have the power to do that. Even though nothing in the translation had suggested it could cure disease, it was hard not to be disappointed. “That was from the bear fight, right?”

I’d assumed that, but she hadn’t told me anything about the wound.

“From thetrapI fell on during the bear fight.” She grimaced. “It was hidden in the leaves, and I didn’t see it, an old-fashioned metal trap with teeth.”

When she gestured in the air, as if to draw it, my mind conjured something from a cartoon. I hadn’t thought anyone used traps like that anymore.

One-handedly, she tugged at the knots on the bandage. I helped her remove it, though I was aware of Duncan pacing behind us, the claws on his feet clacking whenever he stepped offthe rug and onto the bare wooden floorboards. Tension knotted his body as he fought the call of the control device. Any second now, he might lose that battle.

Mom, more interested in what the artifact had done than Duncan’s pacing, held up her hand to the daylight coming in the window and rotated it. The scars appeared to be old and faded, even more so than the one on her neck that I’d noticed the other day.

“Huh,” Mom said. “That’s amazing. We put a new bandage on my hand last night, and wounds were still weeping blood. Lorenzo thought the trap had poison on the teeth, and that was why my werewolf regeneration wasn’t working well on the wounds. I admit I didn’t wash the cuts after I got them, not until later. My whole life, wounds have healed easily and nothing has ever gotten infected, so…” She shrugged.

“If there was poison lingering, that might be why the artifact worked.”

A grunt came from behind, and Duncan lunged for the door. He jerked to a halt before reaching it, the heel of his hand pressing to the scar again.