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Charlotte frowned. "Are they of ... any
monetary significance?"

"Perhaps," said Bernard. "I am not brewing
eternal youth potions, if that's what you mean. Some of us distrust
Allard's means of defending the city of Lyedyn ..."

"Oh, magic," said Charlotte with a tinkling
laugh. "I'm trying to climb the ladder of society, and you're
brewing potions! You must create useful things if we are to attract
notice and add to our fortune."

Bernard replaced his glasses and reopened his
book.

"Well?" snapped Charlotte. "Didn't you hear a
word I said?"

"Yes, my lady," said Bernard without looking
up. "I have no intention of 'adding to our fortune', as you put
it."

Charlotte snorted.

Bernard excused himself soon afterward. He
left the manor and strode across the grounds to a small cottage
near the stables. He'd turned it into a satisfactory laboratory the
year he'd married Charlotte. Producing a key, he let himself in,
and locked the door behind him.

Tables filled the main room, loaded with
alchemical instruments, heated by a cunning iron furnace with many
pipes extending to each table. Bernard moved between them,
observing the infusions, but his mind was not in it. Instead he
fretted over Charlotte. What a silly, empty-headed woman. There was
more to life than the opinions of selfish rich people. What of the
welfare of the people of Lyedyn?

Yet he could not suppress a wistful
attraction. Charlotte was as distant and untouchable as a sunset,
an overwhelming beauty that appeared in his life and vanished
before he could comprehend it. Someday he'd woo her and win her
heart. If only he knew how such a thing was accomplished! The
elixirs bubbling in their vials were less mysterious than his
wife.

Late that night, a knock sounded at the lab's
door. Bernard opened it, and admitted a dark-skinned man in a blue
robe. "Hello Kryn, come in, come in." It was raining outside, as
usual in Lyedyn, but Kryn's robes were dry. He pushed back his
hood, and the sparkles of a weather-warding spell trickled off
him.

Kryn examined Bernard's instruments. "How is
the new batch coming?"

"I haven't tested it yet," said Bernard. "Did
you test my other sample?"

"Yes, unfortunately." Kryn pulled a burlap
sack out of one voluminous pocket and tossed it on a nearby chair.
"It reversed the transformation, but the man died afterward."

Bernard donned a pair of leather gloves,
opened the bag, and withdrew a strand of hair with silver tweezers.
"Pity. I'm beginning to think I'm approaching the problem
wrong."

"What do you mean?" Kryn helped himself to a
pot of tea kept warm over the tiny furnace.

"Maybe there is no cure for the
transformation," said Bernard. "But perhaps I could insulate the
mind from its effects."

Kryn froze with the teacup halfway to his
mouth. He set it down. "You may have something there. The Society
knows about the magic manipulation of minds. For instance." He cast
a small spell. Bernard's hands and feet became hooves, and he
dropped to all fours as a man-sized sheep. He looked at Kryn
reproachfully.

Kryn changed him back. Bernard straightened
up. "I wish you'd warned me."

"Sorry," said Kryn. "I was making a point.
Shapeshift doesn't affect your mind. Only your body."

"You'd better dissect the spell for me," said
Bernard. "How could I duplicate such effects with herbs?"

"We'd better hurry," Kryn said. "It's only a
matter of time until the wolves escape."

"How many are there?"

"At least four hundred."

Bernard fell silent, but from the look on
Kryn's face, they were thinking of the same incident. Several
wolves had escaped into the countryside earlier in the year. The
mages had tracked them by the trail of mangled bodies, and finally
found them in the midst of slaughtering a family. The mages
dispatched the wolves, but the surviving family members fell under
the curse, and were placed with the other wolves upon their
transformation.

Four hundred monsters running wild? It was
too horrible to speak aloud.

Instead they fell to discussing the
technicalities of their crafts, and worked until sunup. Then they
parted ways, and Bernard went to bed until noon. It was one way to
avoid Charlotte.

***

Charlotte took no notice of the alarming
rumors. Spring had arrived, as well as the annual Spring Ball. She
pulled every string she could to ensure that the ball took place at
Halfmoon Manor. She kept the servants hard at work cleaning the
whole house from top to bottom, and drove several maids to tears by
making them re-polish the ballroom floor.

Charlotte bustled around the manor,
overseeing the stocking of pantries, the arrangement of
chandeliers, tables, chairs, and a myriad other things necessary
for a successful ball. It was bliss and stress at once. It also
kept her mind off her failure of a husband.

It wasn't that he was a failure, she amended
as she sat at her writing desk with eight different lists in front
of her. Fifty thousand gold a year was anything but failure. But as
the years had passed, she'd grown to despise him. The man was
scarcely into his thirties! And no ambition. Always content to
tinker with potions and leaving the hard work to her.

She added an item to a list and glared at it,
as if it had offered her a personal affront. At least he might show
interest in the ball! Showing interest in her projects was showing
interest in herself. Yet he never listened, never attempted to
bridge the gulf between them.

Gazing at her lists, Charlotte was suddenly,
desperately lonely. Married three years and no children. People
were beginning to talk. Dame Hepburn had been married a year and
already had produced a son. What had Charlotte to show for her
marriage? Fabulous wealth and nothing else. The romantic in her
craved the love and devotion of a man--yet her husband had all the
affection of a corpse.

Wilson Matthews, the lawyer, had made
advances, but she had rebuffed him until now. But perhaps--perhaps
after the ball, she might accept him. Charlotte deserved love, too,
didn't she?

***

Bernard read books at dinner, and tuned out
Charlotte's chatter about Mrs. So and So and Mr. Such and Such who
had accepted her invitations. He also missed the subtle note of
unhappiness in her voice. The only thing he listened to was the
menu she had planned. He interrupted her in mid-sentence. "Agreed!
I shall certainly attend."

She gaped at him, surprised into silence.

The day of the ball crept closer. Bernard
paid it no attention. He was nearing a breakthrough on his werewolf
curse treatment, and spared little thought for anything else. Many
other alchemists and mages ran their own, parallel experiments, and
all kept in close contact.

The morning of the ball, Bernard distilled
his elixir into a pint bottle. The liquid shimmered pale blue. He
poured a single dose into a small vial and planned to carry it on
his person at all times. Then he looked at it again. There was
enough elixir for two doses. He filled a second vial and tucked
them both into an inner coat pocket.

Then he pulled out a piece of parchment,
loaded a quill with ink, and wrote, "Kryn, I have finished the
elixir. I have not yet tested it, but I have high hopes of its
success. We must test it tomorrow." He signed it, blotted the ink,
rolled it up, and placed it on a square carved stone on a pedestal.
The scroll vanished, sent to a matching stone in the Mage
Tower.

The mansion was seething like an anthill with
last minute ball preparations, so Bernard avoided it. Instead he
fetched a horse from the stables and rode into town.

The sun glanced through the perpetually
cloudy sky, and the wet streets glistened silver. People shouted
and children ran about, almost under the feet of riders and
carriages. The air was warm and smelled of spring. Bernard smiled
and relaxed in the saddle, allowing his horse to choose its own
pace through the crowds.

After a while he reached the more affluent
neighborhoods on the wall side of Lyedyn city. He cantered through
their grassy yards, his horse flinging chunks of turf from its
hooves. The werewolf pens lay inside the gates.

His horse snorted and slowed to a walk,
tossing its head. He patted its neck. "Easy, boy. We're still a
good distance from them."

But even Bernard could smell the werewolf
pens ... like filthy dog kennels. After a while they came into
sight, thick double-braced wooden enclosures, the tops of the
fences studded with sharpened stakes and jagged metal. Guards
encircled the walls, gripping their muskets and looking
nervous.

As Bernard watched, something hit the wall
from the inside and the entire enclosure rocked. There was a wet
snarling sound. The once strong fences had been assaulted so much
that their supports in the ground had weakened.

Bernard jerked his horse around and galloped
for home. The horse laid its ears back, glad to obey. "They should
all be destroyed," he muttered.

What if the monsters escaped soon? Even
tonight? The elixir's protection lasted only a few hours. Perhaps
he'd carry them on his person at all times, the way some men
carried flasks.

He arrived home at noon, and resigned himself
to the ministrations of his servants, who were under orders from
Charlotte to apprehend Bernard and make him presentable. He
submitted to a bath, had his hair combed and powdered, then dressed
in stiff, formal clothes. He made sure to transfer the precious
elixir bottles into the inner pocket of his suit jacket.

By the time his manservant pronounced him
presentable, it was mid-afternoon and guests were arriving. Bernard
peered out his window at the drive below, which was packed with
carriages and footmen ushering brightly-dressed women and
somberly-dressed men up the mansion steps.

He sighed. Off to an evening of fake smiles
and pretending to be pleasant to people he disliked. He patted the
elixir bottles in his pocket, and strode out the door.

Chapter 3: The Bite

Charlotte was busy greeting guests, and
smiled as Bernard appeared at her elbow. "About time," she muttered
out of the corner of her mouth.

"I was otherwise engaged," he murmured back
through his smile.

That was all the conversation they managed.
Guests arrived intermittently for the next four hours, and
Bernard's feet ached in his good shoes. Charlotte looked ravishing
in layers of white and red silk, with a train that fell five feet
behind her. She wore a bouquet of white carnations pinned above her
left ear. Bernard admired her, with an ache in his heart. They were
married, after all, and he had never once touched her.

Once the guests had arrived, Charlotte sailed
into the ballroom, and Bernard trailed in her wake. The worst was
over. All he had to do was hobnob with the other men and enjoy the
buffet. He eyed the table of spirits and soda water, but helped
himself to punch instead. He wanted his head clear tonight. That
wobbling werewolf fence hovered before his mind's eye.

The band started a spirited waltz. Dozens of
pretty dresses and crisp suits swirled onto the dance floor.
Charlotte danced with a tall, handsome lawyer in the thick of it.
She never danced with Bernard. Jealousy plucked at his heart. Then
he wondered why. Their marriage was all but name only. But after a
moment's consideration, he decided that loyalty mattered deeply to
him. He wondered if Charlotte felt the same, and watched her twirl
and dance with the lawyer. Possibly not.

As the dances continued, Bernard browsed the
buffet. Plenty of spiced ham, roast beef, and fowl. Tiny sandwiches
clustered under silver covers, and multicolored eclairs graced
platter after platter. He visited with the other men, as he was
expected to, and flirted courteously with the ladies. But thoughts
of werewolves prowled through his mind. If only he could check his
scrollstone for a return message from Kryn.

Near midnight, fatigue laid its soft
influence upon Bernard, and he rested in a chair near a window.
Thus he heard a strange sound outside--an animal howling. Then the
sound of breaking glass.

He rose to his feet and gazed at the ballroom
entrance. The servants hurried out in alarm, closing the ballroom
doors behind them. But people kept dancing and the music kept
playing in surreal ignorance.

Bernard stood frozen, heart beginning to
pound. The wolves had escaped their pen at last. Had they already
invaded the city? Or had they targeted the outlying manors in the
countryside? He had expected this, yet had no idea what to do. He
lacked fighting skills or magic ability--his only talent lay in
potion making. Surely someone would stop them! The footmen owned
various muskets and fowling-pieces used to enrich Halfmoon Manor's
table. Surely they'd use them in defense of the manor. Surely--

Then the screams began.

Terrible screams, dying women mixed with an
animal howling. The music stuttered to a halt, and the roomful of
handsomely dressed people turned to stare.