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Merritt started to shake his head, then hissed through his teeth and held still. “And you decided it wasn’t necessary to tell us?”

“Her choice.”

“Your ability,” Merritt countered.

“We’re . . . concerned,” Hulda said carefully. “Your contract . . .”

Guilt and uncertainty drew down from Owein’s chest like someone had opened a drain in his pelvis. He folded his arms. “What about it?”

The two exchanged a look. “Owein.” Merritt’s voice took on a careful note. “You haven’t ... that is ... have you two ...”

Owein raised an eyebrow, waiting. A soft blush crossed Hulda’s nose.

Ah.

Merritt cleared his throat. “That is, have you two ... um ...”

Owein put him out of his misery. “Had intercourse?”

Hulda’s flush deepened.

Merritt snorted. “Forward, as always. But yes.”

“No.”

Hulda let out a long breath. “Then you’re not romantically involved.”

His heart thudded against his ribs. Glancing out the window, Owein murmured, “I didn’t say that.”

The two were silent for several heartbeats. Merritt tried, “Owein ...”

“She saved your life,” he said, softer, drawing his eyes back to his nephew, who had become more of a father in the nearly five years they’d known one another.

Merritt sighed. “So did you.”

Hulda shook her head. “It couldn’t have been Silas.”

To Hulda, Merritt asked, “He wasn’t the one you had a vision of? Yesterday, at dinner?”

Hulda had foreseenthis? And hadn’t mentioned the patches of white hair, the madness in his eyes, the threat he posed?

Yet Owein’s rising frustration abated when Hulda shook her head. “No, it was someone else. Someone younger and more hale.” Slipping her fingers under her spectacles, she rubbed her eyes. “I would havemuch preferred to have seenthis. I’ve let my practice slip. If I’d been more vigilant—”

“You wouldn’t have known who he was,” Owein offered.

Lowering her hands, Hulda countered, “I might have seen that he was dangerous. Our children—” Her voice cut off, and she swallowed.

Merritt squeezed her hand. “They’re safe.” His blue gaze found Owein’s. “But Silas—”

“The magic alone.” Owein had been thinking on it, and the more he thought of it, the more certain he felt. “He had the same innate spells. Didn’t he?”

Hulda paused. Nodded.

“I ... smelled him.” Owein adjusted his position against the bedpost.

Merritt’s eyebrows drew together. “Smelled him?”

A shrug. “Silas Hogwood put me in that dog’s body. I know his scent well. I notice things like that still. Smells, sounds. Things I picked up on before. His body wasn’t Silas’s, but his smell was. And this.” Lifting a hand, Owein combed through a hank of his own colorless hair. “This is because this body wasn’t originally mine, just like how the dog spotted white when I lived in it. And Silas—that stranger—his hair looked like the dog’s.”