Zave sighed in relief when Fey finished tying his shirt around his head. The sheer thickness of the fabric after she’d folded it over on itself four or five times should have made it the perfect blindfold, but he could still see out of it clear as day. It did manage to block out the majority of what his freakish new eyes could see, though. The past, present, and future was no longer mashed together into one indecipherable blur. He could still see for what felt like miles, and whenever someone raised their voice too loud the soundwaves would make their outline blur. Compared to the chaos of what he’d been able to see before, though, this was almost manageable.

 

Almost.

 

On the other side of the camp, Glenn and Norrin were sitting side by side, while Ember lay on her back in front of them. Using Ember’s shirt and a leg from Norrin’s pants, Glenn had bound the wounds the fox-walker had sustained while up in the thunderbird’s nest, though neither of them would explain what exactly had happened up there.

 

“There,” Fey said, trying to sound cheerful as she sinched the knot behind Zave’s head. “Back to normal!”

 

Zave turned to look at her, and he didn’t notice the way she shivered when he made eye contact even beneath his blindfold.

 

“Don’t say that word,” he said hoarsely.

 

“What? Normal?”

 

“Don’t get my hopes up like that. Normal?” He shook his head. “There’s nothing normal about me anymore!”

 

Fey gave him a weak smirk. “Zave, look at who you’re with! Do you really think we care about—”

 

“This isn’t the same and you know it!” he yelled, springing to his feet.

 

“Zave, calm down!” Fey said, reaching for him. He brushed her hand away.

 

“Even in a band of freaks, I’m still somehow the biggest freak of all!” He ranted, storming over to the edge of the camp. Then, his anger burning too hot for him to contain, he lashed out and punched a nearby tree. Pain lanced up and down his arm, but the tree barely even shook. “I drove someone insane just by making eye contact with him! None of you can look at me without wetting your damn pants! I don’t care what I am or where these things came from, I don’t want them! I don’t want any of this! I want to take this freaking blindfold off and gouge out my eyes with a stick!”

 

“You don’t mean that, Zave,” Fey said softly. “You’re just—"

 

“Then maybe I’ll be able to say I’m normal again!”

 

“Zave, calm down,” Fey soothed him, putting her hands on his bare chest. “Look at me. Breathe. Freaking out isn’t going to help anything.”

 

“It might make me feel better,” he shot back.

 

“It won’t. Trust me, it never does.”

 

He looked at her through the blindfold, and let out a long, heavy breath before sitting down.

 

“I know you’re scared,” Fey said, sitting next to him, putting an arm around his shoulders. “Nobody blames you for that. We’re all scared. But you’re in my pack, and I’m your alpha, so I’m going to get you through this. I promise!”

 

Across the makeshift camp, Ember scoffed, and Fey gave her a sharp look. The fox-walker had made it abundantly clear what she thought of Fey accepting a human into her pack. The obvious non-humanity of his new eyes had done little to sway her opinion.

 

“I just want it to stop,” Zave whispered.

 

“Maybe it can. Maybe we’ll find a cure for whatever this is, or a way to reverse it somehow.” She pulled him closer. “But hurting yourself won’t get us any closer to that.”

 

“Not to mention,” Glenn broke in, “that your eyes are likely what Jacob Donner wants from you.”

 

Zave gave them a joyless grin. “You think so? Well, maybe I’ll give them to him!”

 

“But he obviously doesn’t want them yet,” said Glenn. “I have no idea what’s going on. I don’t even have theories. But if I had to guess, I’d say that your abilities are still developing. That means that you’re going to get even more powerful before Donner finally decides to make his move.”

 

Zave looked down at his feet. “That doesn’t make me feel better.”

 

“It’s not supposed to. It’s supposed to make you prepared. I intend to see you through this just as much as Fey does.” Glenn made a fist. “You may not be in my pack, but I’ll do anything to spit in that monster’s face. And if I stay near you, I know eventually I’ll see him again!”

 

“We don’t have to worry about that right now,” said Fey, drawing his attention back to her. “You don’t have to worry about it at all. Let me do the worrying, Zave. I’ll take care of you. Me and Cluele—”

 

“Angel.”

 

Fey and Zave turned to look at Clueless in confusion. Her cheeks reddened beneath her fur in embarrassment—something Zave was only able to see because of his new supersight—and she looked away.

 

“What was that?” Fey asked encouragingly.

 

Clueless looked like she wished she hadn’t said anything. But then, to Zave’s surprise, she seemed to steel herself, and raised her head to look at them again.

 

“My…My name,” she said tentatively. “It not Clueless. Not anymore.”

 

Zave sat up, his interest piqued. “You…gave yourself a new name?”

 

Clueless started to nod, but then shook her head. “No. Not me. Ember.”

 

Ember sat up, wincing with pain even as she bared her teeth at Clueless.

 

“Clueless was…name of me…when dog,” she went on, obviously struggling to fit the words together the way she wanted. “Was mad when found out what Clueless meant.”

 

“I’m sorry,” Zave said immediately. “I should never have—”

 

Clueless reached out and took his hand, smiling gently at him.

 

“Not mad anymore. Clueless was me. But now I not dog anymore. So, need new name.” She looked at Fey, then at Zave. “I…choose Angel.”

 

“THAT NAME IS NOT FOR YOU TO TAKE!”

 

Ember was on her feet before Zave or Fey could react. Clutching her side, she limped across the camp, wrapping her other hand around Clueless’ throat and yanking her to her feet.

 

“Ember, stop!” Glenn yelled. “This isn’t what your sister would—”

 

“SHUT UP!” she screamed at her alpha. “DON’T TALK ABOUT HER!”

 

Fey sprang to her hooves but, to nobody’s greater surprise than his own, Zave was even faster. He grabbed his spear off the ground and raised it, aiming it straight for the fox-walker. Glenn and Norrin both tensed, but neither moved, as if they both realized that this was out of their hands now.

 

“Let her go!” Zave snapped.

 

Ember ignored him and shook Clueless, who was making hoarse whimpering sounds as she struggled to breathe. “Take it back!”

 

“He said,” Fey backed him up, “let…her…go!”

 

Finally, Ember looked up at them, and her eyes widened. She glanced nervously at Norrin and Glenn, as if expecting them to defend her in this. When they didn’t, she slowly let go of Clueless’ throat. The dog-walker collapsed to the ground, coughing.

 

“Are you all right?” Zave asked, shoving past Ember to kneel next to her. “Say something!”

 

With Fey’s help, Zave got Clueless into an upright position. She coughed for another minute, and then nodded to show that she was going to be okay. Ember looked at them, and then down at her hands, like she couldn’t believe what she had just done.

 

“I- I hate you!” she exclaimed, tears running down her cheeks. “I hate you all!”

 

With that, she turned and stomped away, leaving the campsite so that she could stew in her anger alone.

 

“What was that all about?” Zave asked, looking to Fey. She shrugged, and he turned to look at Glenn.

 

The deer-walker shook his head. “Ember has been through a lot that she hasn’t told anyone about. That doesn’t excuse her actions, but it’s not my place to share her secrets.”

 

“So…Angel, huh?” Fey asked.

 

Clu—no, Angel gave them a smile. “Is good name?”

 

For the first time since his eyes had changed, Zave felt a real, genuine smile cross his face. “I can’t think of a better one for you.”

 

She beamed at them. “I am Angel!”

 

“Well, seeing how this is the first time we’ve met, Angel,” Zave said, “I think introductions are in order. My name’s Zave. It’s short for Xavier.”

 

“And I’m Fey Greenbriar,” added the goat-walker. “And I’m proud to be your alpha, Angel.”

 

Angel’s smile only grew bigger. “I am Angel!”

 

She gave her pack a hug. It didn’t matter whether she was called Clueless or Angel, she was still the same goofy dog-walker as ever, and hugs would always be her favorite thing.

 

“So, what’s the plan now?” Fey asked a few minutes later, once the excitement over Angel’s new name had died down a little.

 

“We need to get to the counsel,” Glenn said, at the same time that Zave said, “I have to get that letter.”

 

Everyone froze, looking at Zave in confusion.

 

“The smiling man,” he explained, then gestured at his face. “When this happened, I saw him. He was a long ways away, but he left something for me. A letter.”

 

Nobody said anything for a long while. He had told them about the smiling man and his cryptic warnings before, but none of them, not even Glenn, had any idea who he could be. The fact that he’d been the one to show Zave how to use his powers made Zave want to think he was on their side, but there were so many moving parts to this puzzle that trusting a man whose name he didn’t even know would be more than naive, it would be downright stupid. Still, apart from Jacob Donner, the smiling man was the only person who seemed to have any clue at all as to what Zave was.

 

And that was the one thing Zave desperately wanted to know.

 

“And this smiling man,” Glenn finally said, “you know where he was?”

 

Hesitantly, Zave raised a hand and pointed south. “That direction. Somewhere.”

 

Glenn sighed. “That doesn’t help much.”

 

“It was in a city,” Zave insisted. “And I saw the building he was in. I think it was a candy store of some kind. Susie Keiten’s Sweets. If I saw it again, I’d recognize it.”

 

Glenn closed his eyes in thought, and Zave suddenly wished he hadn’t said anything. With the wendigos on the loose, warning the other skinwalker tribes and uniting them to fight their ancient foe should have been Glenn’s only priority. And here was Zave, trying to rope them all into his personal problems. Who was he? What was he? When the fate of an entire race hung in the balance, those questions sounded downright selfish by comparison. Glenn would realize that and do the right—

 

“Then that’s where we’ll go,” Glenn decided.

 

Zave looked at him in surprise. “But what about your counsel?”

 

“We still have a few weeks before that happens,” he answered. “We can find your city, look for this smiling man, and then take another plane…”

 

Norrin groaned.

 

“…or maybe a bus.” Glenn leaned back against the tree. “Whatever the case, Zave, you are what Jacob Donner wants.”

 

“But the skinwalkers—”

 

“Eating my people is how they make new wendigos,” Glenn cut him off. “Whatever his ultimate goal is, you are his key to that. I don’t know if obtaining your powers is his end goal, or if he just wants to use them. Either way, figuring out this mystery is our key to achieving our ultimate goal of sending that bastard to hell!”

 

Zave looked around, and was surprised to see the others nodding. His heart skipped a beat. They cared about him. All of them. Even Ember was glancing over at them with a twinge of concern in her emerald-green eyes, though she quickly snapped her head forward again when she saw him looking. A tear leaked from one of his hidden, horrifying red eyes and slid down his cheek.

 

“Thank you,” was all he could manage to say without choking up.

 

“Everyone, get some sleep,” Glenn said, settling back against his tree. “I have a feeling tomorrow is going to be the start of a very long trip.”

​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​

TO BE CONTINUED