Chapter 4: First Shift

The fur kept coming.

I was on my knees on the library rug, and my arm was no longer shaped like an arm.

"Don't touch me," I said, though he hadn't moved.

"I'm not going to," Caspian said. He was crouched an arm's length away with his palms out. "Term three. Look at me, Thora."

I looked.

"You're not dying. Your wolf is coming up. It's twenty-four years late, and it's angry. You need room."

"I don't have a wolf."

"You have one right now trying to climb out of your wrist."

Another wave of heat went through my ribs, and my spine bowed.

He stood and threw the glass doors open onto the dark.

"Outside," he said. "Pine needles are softer than a rug and it's a lot harder to break a tree."

I crawled.

I don't remember the doors.

I remember the cold air hitting my face.

Under it came a rush of smell so huge that I gagged.

Pine, lake water, the guards at the gate, the smoke of a fire two miles off.

"Breathe out," he said, somewhere behind me. "Don't hold it. The shift hurts worse when you fight it."

"You're not helping."

"I know. Breathe out."

I did.

My bones went one at a time.

I heard each of them, a wet hard snap, and I screamed once more, and then the scream came out wrong.

It came out as a howl.

When it stopped, I was standing on four feet.

The first thing I noticed was that I wasn't cold.

The second was that the world had gotten enormous and sharp.

I could see every needle on the ground and every leaf of every tree, and the moon was so bright it hurt.

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