"Wait, Victor! It's not... Oh, who am I kidding, I'd be pretty terrified too if I was a human." Mercedes stepped onto the patio with a defeated sigh. Her hand raised to shade her eyes against the sun as she watched my brother sprint towards the forest. "He's really fast."

"What did he see?" I asked, stretching out my arms and legs in preparation for the race I was about to run.

"He, um, saw someone eating a face." Mercedes offered an apologetic smile as I cringed from the mental image that conjured.

"Yeah, I'm not sure I can blame him this time."

"Oh, was it Marshall?" asked Liz with a clap of her hands. "He must have bought it when I wasn't working. I know he's been saving up since Tuck opened."

"Oh yeah," answered the zombie queen with a giggle. "He has quite an envious audience crowding round him right now. I admit, even I'm a bit jealous. I might have to splurge on a couple faces for my next date night with Raid."

"Okay, okay," I said, waving my hands to push away the discussion. "I'm not sure I can take much more myself."

"It's a delicacy, you know?" Bungee chuckled at my discomfort and I glared at him before looking back to where my brother was about to breach the tree line.

"Thank you all for your hospitality. I'm sorry for Victor's behavior, I hope Marshall didn't take any offense."

"Too lost in his meal to even notice," assured Mercedes.

"Well, I should go catch him. Maybe we'll try again some other time."

"Good luck, you both are welcome here any time!"

I left the zombie commune at a full sprint. I could've covered more ground as a wolf, but after his earlier reaction, I was wary about exposing him to my supernatural side. Still, even as a human, my body had been imbued with more energy, strength, and resilience. I pushed my limbs to the limit, my only constraint being the length of my legs.

I dove into the forest in record time and I caught glimpses of Victor through the trees.

"Victor, slow down! It's okay. I promise, no one was killed for the zombie's food and there weren't any graves robbed. Okay? It's not that bad."

Despite my assurances, he kept leaping over fallen trees, dodging stray branches, and skirting past shrubbery. I had to admit, Victor really did have a talent for track and field. In fact, his skills seemed to have improved since the last time I went to one of his meets. I wondered if he had done that much training since then or if Whisper Valley was beginning to take hold. Perhaps his wolf was finally rising to the surface.

Then, I watched him lose his footing and take an epic nosedive into the leaf-strewn floor of the forest. I considered maybe my hopes were all just wishful thinking.

Victor groaned on the ground as I approached. However, my steps slowed when I noticed there wasn't anything for him to trip over. Turning to my senses, I reached out, searching for something without any idea what it might be.

It only took a moment, though, to identify her scent. My chest tightened and my muscles grew taut.

Jazmin.

"It's been awhile, hasn't it, Delilah?"

The lean huntress stepped out from where she was hiding behind a trunk. I tried to take inventory of her appearance, to see how she fared in whatever safe house she'd been staying in just outside our borders, but my eyes kept returning to the pendant on her chest.

It was the necklace Clementine asked Genevieve to craft for me. An oval stone carved with a rune, protecting the wearer against any magical security measures in the woods. Last I saw of it, it was sliding down into the depths of a thorny bush just beyond our town limits.

"Nice to see you, Jazmin."

I kept my voice even. Though we separated on fairly decent terms, she was still a huntress and I a wolf. She may have specialized in killing mages, but that didn't mean she couldn't slay a werewolf. The fact she was in the forest with the pendant on, seemed to indicate some trust had formed between us, but I wasn't going to take that leap of faith when she stood between my brother and me.

"You tripped me," said Victor as he massaged his ankle. "Were you hoping to eat me? Does that mean you are a zombie or a vampire?"

"It's daylight, Victor," I said with a sigh. "She wouldn't be a vampire."

"Yeah, well I thought zombies were green and decaying, but that was wrong, though the eating humans thing wasn't."

"I told you, they don't kill the humans. The people they eat died without any influence from Whisper Valley. Some folks here set up a crematorium in the nearby city and they harvest the flesh from their clients—which I might add, would have been vaporized by the heat anyway."

He paused and looked between Jazmin and myself.

"Really?"

"I can't speak for that," said the huntress with a scrunch of her nose, "but I haven't heard anything about zombies robbing graves or causing trouble in these parts from fellow hunters, so I'd trust her."

"You're a hunter? Of what?"

He got to his feet, though he kept his weight off the foot that collided with whatever Jazmin used to trip him.

"Mages," she answered firmly and succinctly.

"Haven't met those yet," he mumbled, giving her a wide berth as he edged his way over to my side.

"Maybe you have." Her response was a whisper and her eyes searched the ground. Perhaps there was still hope to convince Jazmin of her talents, but that wasn't something I wanted to pursue in that moment. My primary concern was getting her comfortable around me and within town limits.

"So, what are you doing in the woods, Jazmin?" I tried to sound as nonchalant as possible, but the hope was clear in my voice. Since our last run-in, I wasn't sure if I'd ever see her again, even though I desperately needed her to stick around. My plan to reveal Graham for who he was hinged on her witness of Clementine's murder.

"I was testing this amulet out," she said with a sneer as she gripped her hand tight around the oval stone. "I've done it a couple times already, but seeing how you ran right into me, I suppose it doesn't actually work after all."

"Oh no," I said without a moment's hesitation, "the only one with eyes on the forest is the Archmage and so that amulet just guards you from him. As for Victor, he just has really bad luck."

I looked over at my poor brother, who stood to the side and a little ways behind me.

"I really do," he affirmed with a slight whimper.

The huntress crossed her arms and looked between the two of us.

"How much does he know?" Her question was low, though we both knew Victor would hear her grave question.

I shook my head.

"Nothing. He hasn't even learned the basics of life here."

Thankfully, my brother's propensity for running the second he saw danger, also meant he knew when to keep his mouth shut. In fact, he may willfully choose to black out the whole conversation and not even bother bringing it up when we were in a more private setting.

Jazmin raised her chin, studying Victor. Then she sighed and glanced over her shoulder.

"We will speak later."

"I'd like that." My words were bright with my excitement. Finding Jazmin and confirming she wasn't done with me was more than I could have hoped for. "How can I find you again?"

"If you reach out," she answered, flicking her eyes at my oblivious brother, "I might reach back."

I didn't need her to say more. Jazmin had previously contacted me using her projection magic to talk to me while I was in a relaxed state of mind. I took her acknowledgment of that connection as yet another tentative step towards acceptance.

"Right, well we should be going. Victor's antics in town are well known, especially amongst the elders. So Graham probably assumes I'm spending my time calming him down after he freaked out at the zombie commune. However, the longer we stay here, the more likely he is to come snooping around."

She didn't even let my point sink in. She nodded her head the moment the words left my tongue. Then she turned and ran off towards the river that drew the border of town, leaving us in her dust, uncertain of where and when we'd see her again.

***

Jazmin is still around and stalking through the woods. Will she accept she has magic and is a mage, even though it is mages that she has always hunted down?

Been playing a lot of catch up recently. Pollen has been kicking my ass and flaring up my sinusitis. I think I can grit my teeth and suffer through most things, but sinus pressure headaches are absolutely debilitating for me. So it's been really hard some days to do anything, much less write. However, I've been slowly catching up so that I'm more on the ball with getting things posted. Keep your fingers crossed for me!