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“I’ve observed that to be true,” Duncan said.

I exchanged looks with Mom, whose lips were twisting again, though her gaze soon returned to the medallion. Today, it lay on Duncan’s button-down shirt, gleaming in the sun but not glowing and emanating power the way it had during the battle.

“It is interesting that it would protect you from the magic of that control device when it existed,” Mom said, “but cannot do so after it’s gone.”

“Inconvenient more than interesting,” Duncan murmured.

“Is it that it can not?” Lorenzo asked. “Or perhaps that it will not?”

“What are you suggesting?” Mom asked him.

Lorenzo shrugged. “It’s your family’s heirloom. They both are, right?” He nodded toward the cabin, where Mom probably had the matching medallion in her bedside table.

“They haven’t always belonged to my direct ancestors but always to the Snohomish Savagers, originally the Sardegna Savagers.

Or selvaggio , I believe it was. I never learned the tongue.

The pack left Italia several generations ago.

” Mom lifted a finger, stepped inside, and returned with her medallion.

With a fanged wolf in profile in the center, it was almost identical to Duncan’s, but the head engraved on hers had smaller and narrower features. More petite, to suggest a female wolf? Long ago, maybe an actual male and female alpha had been the inspiration and posed for the engravings.

“I brought the wolf case and witch talisman along.” I waved to the truck. “I thought having them all together again might do something. Like last time.”

By do something , I meant cure Duncan.

Crossing my mental fingers, I hopped off the porch and pulled the items out of the glovebox. I hadn’t brought an oven mitt or ski glove, and the case zapped me painfully.

“Aren’t we friends yet?” I grumbled, enduring the punishment long enough to rest it on the porch railing. I put the talisman next to it.

Lorenzo watched all this curiously. Mom merely nodded.

She wouldn’t know about the vision Duncan had received, but she’d been there when the case had opened.

In addition to healing her poisoned cut, the mushroom-shaped artifact inside had magnetically or magically drawn the other artifacts toward it.

“You may need to turn into the bipedfuris again to get the case to open,” I told Duncan.

Eager barks and a howl came from the woods behind the property, and he looked in that direction instead of answering.

“Is the family on a hunt?” I guessed, though it was full daylight, no hint of the moon in the sky.

“Sort of,” Mom said with an eye roll. “There are yellow-bellied marmots in a rocky area back there by some old mine shafts. Gold prospectors poked around in the hills along the stream there in the 1800s, before our family purchased the property. The marmots love the area. It’s got water and rocks and holes and whatever they like to eat.

A couple of them have come out of hibernation early and are taunting predators with cheeping sounds.

Emilio and his brother are back there, digging at the rocks.

They consider it fun. I think they’re idiots. ”

“You’d better get things straightened out with the real estate agent,” I said, “so you don’t lose land filled with such valuable resources.”

“If you’re talking about the mineral rights, I don’t think anyone ever found much gold back there.”

“I meant the marmots. Keeping young werewolves entertained is important.”

“Ginevra’s boys did play back there when they were kids,” Mom said. “It’s a great spot for youths.”

More eager barks and yips wafted to us.

“And the pathologically immature,” she added.

I snorted and looked toward Duncan again. He was gripping his chin and studying the case.

“ Can you still call upon the bipedfuris?” I asked softly, stepping close to him. “Or is it harder now that you’re…” I waved vaguely, not wanting to suggest he was weakened or diminished.

“I’m still fine,” he said dryly.

“Then there won’t be a problem changing to prompt the case to open?”

“I wish we’d brought some rattlesnakes.”

“We still don’t know if waving a venomous reptile over the case will also cause it to open.”

“Because we keep forgetting to try.” Duncan pushed a hand through his hair. “I haven’t turned into the bipedfuris since the battle at the cabin. I’m not sure if I should.”

“They don’t have another way to compel or manipulate you in that form, right?” I recalled that he’d been more susceptible to the control device as the bipedfuris.

“Oh, I certainly hope not.”

“But you’re not sure?” I raised my eyebrows.

“I didn’t see any evidence that they had a back-up device or anything of that ilk. But I’m a little… gun-shy, I suppose.”

“I haven’t noticed that you’re any kind of shy.”

“I have my moments.” Duncan glanced at Mom.

She and Lorenzo had stepped back to give us privacy but were watching, no doubt curious about what would happen when the case opened again.

“The artifact inside has healed me, but it’s also…

I’m not sure how to explain it. Both times I’ve been the bipedfuris when that lid has opened, I’ve felt hatred from it.

That it wants me dead. The first time, I was so busy fighting that I barely registered it.

I even forgot about it until I felt it again. ” He tilted his head toward the cabin.

“When you turned to see if it would help Mom.”

The artifact had helped her, but not in the way I’d hoped. It had healed the wound she’d received from a bear trap, not her cancer, or The Taint, as the wise wolf called it.

“Yes,” Duncan said.

“When you were pacing around and grabbing your forehead, I thought you were agitated because the control device had been activated, that Radomir was trying to summon you.”

“Oh, I did feel that, but I also felt hatred rippling from the glowing artifact inside.” He eyed the case.

“I suppose that’s not surprising. It was made to protect people from werewolf bites, among other things. Do you think that’s why it zaps me every time I pick it up? Warning me that it’s not for us?”

“Maybe.”

“I should ask Bolin if it zaps him.”

He and his father had studied it when we’d first unearthed it.

“I’d assumed that was a defensive mechanism and that it zaps everyone ,” I added.

“I don’t know.”

“It did help you before though.” I pointed at the medallion, though it had been my mother’s medallion that had been involved that day. “Giving you the vision so you could find it.”

“ That helped me.” Duncan pointed toward Mom’s medallion. “I think that —” he shifted his pointing finger to the case without making contact, “—was the catalyst. Its magic and magnetism woke up the medallion, but I don’t think it cared about helping me.”

“It cured you when you were poisoned during the fight with Augustus,” I said. “And it healed Mom’s poisoned wound too.”

“Maybe its programming to heal cuts lined with poison overrides its distaste for werewolves,” he said.

“It could also only feel distaste for werewolves when they’re in one of their furry forms,” Mom, who’d been listening in, suggested.

“Or the bipedfuris form specifically.” I nodded. “That’s the only time a werewolf is in danger of spreading lycanthropy through its bite. The translation specifically mentioned protecting against that. One does wonder, if our kind aren’t meant to have it, why the case has ended up here though.”

Mom shrugged. “Happenstance, I imagine. You said your ex-husband found it, didn’t you?”

“Yeah, but that wasn’t…” I paused. I’d had visions that had suggested the artifact or some other magical or maybe even divine force had orchestrated that, but did I want to admit that? In front of my mother? “I’m not sure that was only chance,” I said with a shrug.

“What else would it be?” Mom squinted at me.

Thinking I was nuts? Or would she not bat an eye at talk of visions? She’d mentioned the magical cave and sent me to it, so maybe she’d experienced such things herself.

“I’ll give it a try.” Duncan, eyes focused on the case as he wrestled with his own doubts, might or might not have been listening to us. “But if I turn furry, then run off into the woods yipping, you’ll know it’s doing something to me.”

“Or maybe I’ll think you’re being drawn by squeaking marmots,” I said as a few more barks drifted to us.

What kind of wolves barked like that? They sounded like mindless dogs.

“Well, one does enjoy a hunt, though I prefer larger and more dangerous game.” Duncan smiled faintly, but it didn’t reach his eyes. Because he thought turning into the bipedfuris while near the case again was a bad idea?

“You don’t have to do it,” I said. “We can try other things. Maybe Rue will come up with something. Or want to study you further.”

“Save me from that,” Duncan murmured, then stepped back and started removing his clothing. “It’s my life that’s in the balance. I’d better try anything we can think of to save it.”

“Okay.” I didn’t suggest he might be open to trying anything he could think of to avoid spending more time being scrutinized by an alchemist with giant needles and syringes.

Leaving only the medallion on, Duncan draped his clothing on the railing. Then he gripped the wolf head, looking off into the woods as he did whatever mental tricks were necessary to convince his savage side to come forth without the moon’s call.

It might have been another round of yips from the woods that did it, a promise of lupine fun to be had if one came to the marmot area. Duncan grew broader and taller, fur sprouting as his limbs thickened and fingernails and toenails turned into claws.

The lid on the case flew open, intense light shining out, as it had before in this situation.

Growling, Duncan took several steps back from it, arms spreading, clawed fingers flexing.

The talisman, still lying on the railing, skidded toward the case, only stopping when it clunked against it.

The chain around Duncan’s neck lifted into the air, also pulled in that direction.

Mom’s medallion shifted in her hand. Only her grip kept it from flying over to attach itself to the side of the case—or the glowing artifact inside.

All four of us stood still, only Duncan shifting and growling. Feeling the artifact’s agitation, as he’d described it, toward him?

I didn’t feel anything like that, but I did sense the great magical power emanating from it. I crossed my fingers, hoping it could do something to help. All this power and magic had to be able to break a curse, right?

Despite their attraction toward the artifact, the medallions didn’t glow themselves. Nor did I receive any visions. Would it help if I touched one?

I lifted a finger toward Mom’s medallion, thinking to try, but Duncan swayed, arms spreading, as if he was trying to retain his balance.

“Are you okay?” I asked.

The bipedfuris bared his teeth in a grimace and swayed again. There weren’t any magical beams lancing toward him—no attacks of any kind that I could detect—but he looked like he was in pain. Then he crumpled, landing on his side on the wooden porch.

Alarmed, I sprang toward Duncan, kneeling and touching him. I glanced at the case, afraid the artifact was attacking him in some way I couldn’t sense. It continued to glow, but it didn’t do anything more threatening.

“Duncan?” I touched his furred torso.

His eyes closed, as if in sleep. Or in death. The thought scaring me, I shifted my fingers to his throat to search for his pulse.

His heart was still beating—that was something, anyway—but he didn’t stir at my touch. He lay unresponsive.