Brendan awoke to the sight of Adrian sitting at the edge of his bed. "Let's go somewhere," he said, in a whisper. Even in the small sliver of moonlight from he shadows, he could make out the mischievous glint in his eye.

Brendan yawned, excising the sleep from his eyes. "At 2 in the morning?" Even in this situation, he couldn't help but admire the fact that the spare bedroom was almost bigger than his entire house in Corviston. Just the walk-in robe was the same size as his bedroom at home.

"You wanna go or not?"

"We have a big day tomorrow. Wouldn't it be better to get some sleep?"

"I'll buy you coffee. I promise. And anyway, we'll only be gone for a while. If things go smoothly." "If things go smoothly? What if they don't go smoothly?" Brendan thought of the things he had seen on the way here. He had no idea what Adrian meant but it didn't sound good.

"Well... then they don't go smoothly," Adrian shrugged.

"Okay." Brendan put on his clothes, trying to adjust to the harshness of the artificial light on his night-attuned senses. "They don't mind?"

"If they don't notice, it's fine." Adrian had that look in his eyes again."

"You've done this before, haven't you?"

"Years ago, yes."

"Did you ever get caught?"

"Only once."

Brendan was curious about that, but decided that it could wait till later. "Where are we even going?"

"You'll find out when we get there."

***

They tiptoed down the polished corridors to the garage. The house crouched supine around them like an animal in slumber. He imagined that brushing against a pillar or a misstep would rouse it from its reverie, snarling at his clumsiness. He paid close attention to the level changes. He did not want that to actually happen.

Brendan felt himself relax as Adrian switched on the light in the relatively austere garage. The dark shadows around them were transformed into cars.

"Wow," Brendan mumbled, mesmerised by the gleaming metal and glass surrounding him. He had never seen this many cars in a single garage. "This is impressive."

"It's not much. Compared to some of our neighbours."

"It's still more cars than I've ever seen in a garage, ever."

"That's their car." Adrian pointed at a silver Audi SUV parked in the leftmost corner. "The cousins, I mean."

"They can drive?" Brendan hadn't even thought about getting his license yet.

"Yeah? Why not?"

"I didn't know how the licensing system worked over here."

"It basically works the same as on the other side. You know a lot of our services are just piggybacked off of yours. It was all part of the agreement when the Industrial Zone was set up. Though there's basically no enforcement so lots of people just drive without a license."

"Didn't know that." Brendan looked at the rear of the car. "Those are some nice pipes." He peered closer. There was another, smaller exhaust tip hidden behind the tips. "If only they were real."

Adrian smirked. "Are you making fun of their car?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, well I don't really like Audis either."

"It's proof that Germans have a sense of humour, I guess."

"That joke's going to be lost on us."

"It's true. werewolves have the worst sense of humour in the whole world. Or to put it another way, we're the only people who aren't as funny as Germans. Why do you think all of our comedians are German backpackers?"

"What if you're a German werewolf?"

"Then you're doubly cursed."

Adrian led him to an old pickup truck at the very end, easily the worst car in the whole fleet, but at least the exhaust pipe was honest about what it was. They got in.

***

They soon left the lights of the Industrial Zone behind. The asphalt and streetlights quickly ran out as they turned onto an unsealed road leading into the forest. Adrian was driving quite fast for the conditions. The truck shuddered and jumped over the washboarded surface of the road, damaged by repeated floods.

Brendan stared at the thick, inpenetrable forest on either side. The darkness was total, menacing, unlike any he had ever known in the tame suburbs of Corviston. In his childhood he had been scared of the dark, but this darkness was on another level. His imagination conjured up visions of eyes tracking their every move. Occasionally he could see lights and the silhouettes of houses through the trees, which only added to the eerie feeling. He wondered who lived there, what they did there in such a secluded existence. He wondered if they were safe, but surely Adrian knew his stuff. having grown up here. Surely he knew these roads like the back of his hand. He would be safe with him.

There were barely any traffic and Adrian drove fast, over blind crests at breathtaking speed. Not that there were speed limits to adhere to or a highway patrol to evade. They passed the occasional truck. Adrian had explained that some truckers drove at night to get things across to remote packs by daybreak, or to encounter less traffic. But there were no other cars.

The trees thinned out to scrub. The road wound down sharply, and in the light of the waxing moon, Brendan could see the majestic sweep of the coastline before him, under the shadow of the cliffs. Somewhere down there, with his crew, Beidzner was trying to parse the secrets of the sea, working around the clock.

Adrian parked in the brush at the edge of the beach. They got out into the brisk night breeze. Brendan shivered, taking in the crisp night air, tinged with salt. He followed Adrian's lead onto the beach. They stood side by side for a while, watching the breakers, tinted greyish blue by the pallid moonlight. The moon shone bright above them, its waxing form unobstructed by cloud. The background roar of the waves crashing onto the shore drowned out their thoughts.

"Is this your special place?"

"I want to show you something." Adrian led him over to a cluster of rocks at the water's edge. Holding the flashlight with one hand, he turned one over. There were more rocks beneath that. He turned them over as well. A few critters crawled away.

There was a dark brown goo under the rock, shining under the light of his phone. Even after twenty years, there was still a faint smell.

"That's crude oil." Adrian took a little while to answer. "1994. You know what happened in 1994." "The economy in the Independent Territories collapsed." Brendan recited.

"They were running out of fuel. At one point we only two days' reserve. Some entrepreneurs banded up to organise some crude tankers. The first tanker to arrive was the Cheryomushki. It ran aground just over there." Adrian pointed towards a rock formation some distance out from shore. The faint noise of waves breaking pierced the calm night atmosphere. "The rocks cut through the hull like rice paper."

The breakers glimmered in the moonlight. The relaxing noise of them crashing gently on the shore.

"This was all covered in crude oil." Everything. there's still oil under the rocks. Everywhere. They did a cleanup but they're still finding bits of crude."

"There was a group of merfolk here on a foraging mission that night. They tried to escape the oil slick but it was too late. They were trying to seek refuge in a cave but they didn't make it. It's not recorded anywhere because they covered it up but everyone around here knows about it. Even some of the Wythaven folk know about it. The stuff's fatal to us. The only way is to become human."

"So they turned you into a human."

"I shouldn't have come on the foraging trip," he said. "But my mum couldn't leave me at home. I was a very active baby, apparently. I don't remember any of that, of course. They told me that when they found me I was wrapped in my mother's arms. Their only choice to save me was to give me the potion."

"How did they have the potion?"

"She carried it on her in a locket. There's usually only enough for one person. She sacrificed her dose for me."

They fell silent. They stood there, listening to the soothing sound of the waves lapping on the shore. The worries seemed a world away. The tiniest sliver of light was beginning to creep into the lower margins of the night sky.

"How did they adopt you?" Brendan watched the waves break on the shore.

They were one of the first people on the scene. My mum was responsible for holding me after I had been rescued. She says it was love at first sight. Almost nobody knows the full story. They just that I look different from the rest of my family and they just assume that I'm adopted."

"Do you ever think about... returning? Going to try and find your roots."

"Not a day goes by. Even though I wasn't brought up in the culture and I don't know any of them I still feel like I have a connection. I don't know how to explain it. It's like there's something empty there, but I can feel something vague. But I don't know how to return the favour."

"So that's why this is so important to you." Brendan blinked back tears.

They left before the break of dawn.

***

On the way back they encountered the first car since they had set off. A black Landcruiser parked on the side of the road. There was a figure at the side of the car waving him over. "Shit," Adrian muttered. He pulled over in front of the car. Brendan felt something clinch in his gut. This was how people got disappeared.

"It'll be alright," Adrian reassured, winding down the window. "Let me handle it."

The guy shone a flashlight into the car, the blinding beam stinging Brendan in the eye. He had never been so much as stopped by a policeman in his twenty or so years of life, so this was something new.

Brendan noticed another figure behind the car.

"There's been a rogue attack at a nearby pack." The alpha's voice was deep, guttural. "We're just checking IDs of everyone that goes past."

"ID please." Adrian produced his driver's license from his wallet.

"And yours too." Brendan obliged.

"What are you doing at this hour?"

"I was scattering my grandmother's ashes," Adrian lied, pretending to blink back tears. "She wanted them to be scattered onto the beach in the moonlight." Brendan had to admit that he was convincing. "She loved the beach.."

"And him?"

"He's my cousin. Her favourite nephew."

Nothing happened for a few moments. He went back to consult with his colleague. Then he returned. "All good. Have a safe trip home."

"This is technically not their territory," Adrian said, putting the truck in first and pulling away. "The road is neutral, and there's a fifty-metre buffer on either side of the road."

"Where the hell did you get that from?"

"What from?"

"The story."

"Ruth Gray. You know, she had her ashes scattered just up the coast. In her old pack."

"I remember that now..."