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Mor

The monster’s emotional grid is a frantic jumble of glowing threads that pulse and flash and reach for me as I try to untangle them.

I pluck apart the obvious emotions while doing my best not to let them weave into my own feelings.

Fear. Confusion. Pain.

Anger.

White. Sage.

Neon blue. Tangerine.

What I’m keeping a special eye out for is amber—for aggression.

Someone can be angry and not lash out.

I would fully expect him to be furious after being trapped for however long.

But that doesn’t automatically mean he’s dangerous.

The freed mythic is tall despite his hunched shoulders, with wild brown hair that falls partly over his eyes, but cannot hide his strong features.

When his fingers flex, I spy what I’m almost certain is webbing between the digits.

He gives off a sense of heaviness, matched by the thickness of his limbs.

Even his neck is large, so much so that I doubt he could be taken down by a choke hold.

If he decides to fight, this mythic will be a force.

Let’s hope he’s a pacifist.

“I know this is all disorienting,” I say in my calm, no-nonsense voice.

“But we can take as long as you need. Answer every single question you have. Are you hungry?”

Without food for years, he should be dead, no matter what manner of creature he is.

But that statue magic seemed to keep him preserved.

He stares around the forest clearing, meanwhile pressing a hand against his stomach, as if checking.

“We have all kinds of food back at the house.” I gesture toward the library, the roof visible just over the treetops.

He follows the direction of my hand, then jerks back, stumbling away.

Flashes of white flare bright.

Pure, unfiltered fear.

“No! I’m never going back there!”

And I’m too late to fix my mistake because Bo whirls on his heel and dives into the forest. Disappearing among the trees and leaving the blanket behind.

“Me follow?” Jack asks in his wolfman shape, voice a broken growl, his eyes on the dark foliage.

After considering his offer, I shake my head.

“I think chasing him would only make it worse.”

Hurrying over to my bag, I pull out a rolled-up paper.

Unfurling it reveals a map of Folk Haven and Lake Galen.

I draw the necessary symbols in the corners, speak the tracking spell, and mentally direct my power into the paper.

After a moment, a small glowing dot appears.

I breathe a sigh of relief.

“The tracking spell is working.”

Now that I’ve activated it, it’s only good for a handful of hours.

But this way, we can find Bo without hunting him through the woods.

“I’ll handle this,” I tell my siblings, grateful for their help up to this point, but feeling the urge to have as few people following Bo as possible.

“You shouldn’t do it on your own,” Ame says.

“I won’t. I’ve got some backup on standby.”

After the Ophelia incident—where she burst into a giant fiery bird and flew away across the lake—I thought it best to alert the Mythic Council and town police that I would be freeing another cursed mythic.

They’re all expecting me to check in tonight.

After disinfecting the cut on my hand and wrapping a quick bandage around the wound, I dig my phone out of my pocket, tapping on a familiar name in my Contacts list.

“How did it go?” Levi asks the moment we connect.

He’s the monster council member and the most likely to have to oversee our new town resident.

“He’s upset. Confused. And he ran. But I didn’t sense violence.” I start jogging through the woods, trusting my siblings to clean up the spell site.

“I’m tracking him. Are you with Samantha?” I name the Folk Haven chief of police.

“Yeah, you’re on speaker.”

“We’re in my cruiser.” Samantha speaks directly to me.

“Half a mile from your driveway toward town.”

“I’m going to drive myself. Meet me on the road and follow.” I glance down at the map, surprised to see his dot in the water.

Is he part water mythic?

“Looks like he’s swimming now, but on his way toward the Of the Claw section.” Which you’d have to pass through to reach the Monster section.

Not that I have to voice that for us all to know.

“Do you know his name?” Levi asks.

“Bo.” I climb into my truck and place the phone on the mount.

“That’s all I got so far. Ring any bells?”

“No, but I’m sure Moira will know.” He names his mate, the only real estate agent in Folk Haven and from one of the founding families.

“That sounds familiar to me,” Samantha says just as I pull onto the road and spot her headlights behind mine.

“But I can’t place it.”

“I think …” I swallow, feeling a sudden wave of worry for the mythic I shouldn’t feel responsible for.

“I think he was trapped for a while.”

This is not the world Bo knows anymore.