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floorboards, cunningly carved to be inconspicuous and
flush with the floor. He fingered the key with a fearful longing
before thrusting its cool silver into the lock.
    It was the same as it always had been: his
heart thundering with anticipation. Darse sighed and nearly
returned the key to the box—he had experienced this letdown too
many times—yet his dream had planted a doubt. He knew he could not
uproot the lie without seeing the depressing truth of the closed
portal with his own eyes.
    He inhaled.
    The clicks of the lock sent a thrill through
him, and he chided himself, “What am I? A child? There is nothing
new here.”
    Darse had to yank the door open to combat
the stiff, unused hinges, but then he released it with a pounding
crash as he cowered back in shock. He stumbled and fell, and his
wrists flared in pain from their sharp impact with the floor. He
attempted to scamper backwards in a wild flailing motion.
    He was acutely aware of the bare flesh of
his chest.
    The wolf from below thrust the slammed—but
now unlocked—door open with an impressive smack from his burly neck
and clambered up effortlessly. He was an enormous creature with
onyx eyes, umber brown fur, and a fearful grin. He filled the small
room with his bulky frame, easily half the height of a man, and
loomed before Darse. He was dripping wet and smelled of nectar and
wet dog.
    “I have seal for you,” he said in a rumble.
Drool slid from the side of his mouth and pooled beneath him.
    Darse clambered to both his feet, shaking
and shocked. His heart raced as he eyed the monster warily.
    “I have seal for you,” the wolf
repeated.
    Darse nodded and swallowed, not
understanding.
    The wolf snorted at the man’s reaction. He
stretched his muscles as though about to shake free of the dripping
water, but he halted mid-movement as his piercing eyes took in his
surroundings.
    “May I offer you anything?” Darse asked
shakily.
    “I am no visitor,” the wolf asserted. His
black eyes bore into the man, and Darse caught amusement there. It
did not have a calming effect.
    “I have seal for you.”
    “Seal?”
    The wolf flipped open a white pouch that
hung snugly around his neck. It could have been taken for a collar
at a first glance, but this was an animal unlikely to be owned by
another. He held the pouch under his paw and, with a practiced
flick of his jaw, shook a letter out and adeptly sent it flying in
Darse’s direction. It hit the man’s hand and fell to the ground.
Darse stared, bewildered, before finally crouching down and
retrieving the envelope.
    The thin paper was remarkably dry and as
smooth as satin, with a musky scent. He broke the sealed wax—a
clear-gold inscribed with a simple image of a fish’s tail—and slid
the tiny note out into his palm.
    Concisely, it read: Massada invites you
to return.
    Darse gaped, stupefied. He looked to the
wolf, but the filthy creature was already retreating down the
stairs. “Wait. When do I go? What am I to do?”
    The wolf snapped his head up and stared hard
with savage eyes. As though sensing the fear that flowed fast in
Darse’s blood, the wolf smiled. His lupine teeth curled the
gesture—whether volitionally or not—into a sneer.
    “I only deliver through the portals,” he
replied. He shuffled back to make his exit, hesitated, and spoke,
“The canal is open. You’re free to enter Massada at your instinct.”
He bowed his snout and growled.
    Darse felt every bone in his spine tingle.
The wolf bounded down the stairway. Darse heard a splash as the
creature took to water.
    Darse peered into the dark, but only after a
few minutes of silence did he see the mass of white envelopes
strewn before the cellar door. There were dozens of them. They all
read his name on the outside, just as the one clenched in his fist,
except paw prints and muddied water had soiled the thin letters
below to a mess of pulp. Darse shuddered thinking of the number of
wolves that had been scratching beneath his