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it from his eyes and blinked around. The woods here were thick and tangled. He was not sure how far downstream they had come, but the ford, the wagon, and his men were nowhere in sight. He was shivering in shock from the head blow.
    She stood up, water streaming from her clothes, and staggered out of the river toward him, her hand reaching. He cried out, a wordless bellow, and recoiled, wrapping his arms around a small tree, in part to hold himself upright, in part to hold…“Don’t touch me!”
    “What? Lord Ingrey, you’re bleeding—”
    “Don’t come any nearer!”
    “Lord Ingrey, if you will just—”
    His voice cracked. “My wolf is trying to kill you! It is coming unbound! Stay away!”
    She stopped, stared. Her hair had come partly undone, and water trickled from it in sparkling drops, plashing silently into the moss at her feet, steady and fascinating as some strange water clock.
    “Three times,” he gasped hoarsely. “That was the third time. Don’t you realize, I tried to drown you just now? It’s tried twice before. The first time I saw you, when I drew my steel, I meant to run you through on the spot. Then when we were sitting, I almost tried to strangle you.”
    She was pale, thoughtful, intent. Not running away screaming. He wanted her to run, whether screaming or not made no matter to him. As long as she could outrun him…
    “Run!”
    Instead, maddeningly, she leaned against a tree bole and began to remove her squelching boots. It wasn’t until she had tipped out the second one that she said, “It wasn’t your wolf.”
    His head was still ringing from the blow against the boulder. By the unpleasant rumbling in his gut, he was due to vomit some river water soon. He didn’t comprehend her. “What?”
    “It wasn’t your wolf.” She set the boot down next to its mate and added in a tight, even voice, “I can smell your wolf, in a sense. Not smell really, but I don’t know any other way to describe it.”
    “It—I tried to kill you!”
    “It wasn’t your wolf. It wasn’t you, either. It was the other smell. All three times.”
    Now he merely stared, all words deserting him.
    “Lord Ingrey—you never asked where the ghost of Boleso’s leopard went.”
    It wasn’t a stare anymore, he feared. It was a gape.
    “It came to me .” Her hazel eyes met his for one level, intent moment.
    “I…it…excuse me,” said Ingrey hoarsely. “I have to throw up now.”
    He retreated around his too-narrow tree, for what little privacy it could render him. He wished he could say the spasm gave him a moment to gather his wits, but they seemed scattered for a mile behind him up the river valley. Drowned, they were, without benefit of wine. All of the punishment, none of the reward.
    He stumbled back around the tree to find her calmly wringing out her jacket. He gave up and sat down with a thump upon a mossy log. It was damp, but he was damper, his wet leathers sliding and squeaking unpleasantly.
    She looked no different, to his eye. Well, wet, yes, sodden and wild, but still caressed by the slanting light as if the sun were her lover. He saw no cat shape in her shadow. He smelled nothing but himself, a sickly mix of wet leather, oil, sweat, and horse.
    “I don’t know if it was Boleso’s intent that I should have it,” she continued in that same flat tone, undaunted by the repulsive interruption. “It came to me when I touched his dying body, looking for the key. The other animals stayed bound, and went with him. He had held them longer, or perhaps the rite hadn’t been finished. The leopard’s spirit was very frightened and frantic. It hid itself in my mind, but I could feel it.
    “I did not know what to do, or what it might do. Boleso’s men were fools. I said nothing about it, and no one asked.”
    “Your defense—that could be your defense!” he said in sudden eagerness. “The leopard spirit killed the prince, in its frenzy. Not you. You were possessed by it. It was an