“Yvon? Do you have a moment?”


    Anya peeked around the door to Yvon’s study. The wolf sat at his desk, his work illuminated by a single candelabra. It was long past sundown, and shadows seemed to cling to his back like strange nesting crows.


    “Possibly. What is it?” He did not turn around.


    “I need to check your organs, make sure I didn’t mess anything up when I turned you back. It’s been a couple days, so things have had time to settle.”


    “Very well. I must request you make it quick.”


    Anya walked to him, and motioned for him to sit sideways in his chair. While pulling up his shirt, she peeked at his desk - a letter from the Beauforts, and an unopened parcel from the de Neveuxes.


    …We must thank you most profusely, Lord Clary, for returning to us our dear Benoit. It would appear his experience has made of him a new man, and he will be a bother to you no longer. Such blessings are the foundation of a unwavering partnership, and I dearly hope our future may be as bountiful…


    “Mr. Beaufort seems surprisingly positive,” Anya said.


    Anya plunged her hand into the thick fur of Yvon’s back. No problems, though his heartbeat rose perceptibly at her touch.


    “Positive? Read between the lines, and it is all but a declaration of war. I take it Benoit has not improved,” Yvon replied.


    Anya recalled Benoit’s empty eyes, and Manon’s fury. It stung her, like cold iron through her heart.


    She pricked her finger, and expanded her art-sense into him. The stigmata had performed its function, and there were no issues.


    “All good! Back to a perfectly normal wolf.”


    Yvon nodded, though it seemed something else was on his mind.


    “It was the only way. Freeing a seditionist could only multiply our troubles, while resolving a claim dispute by force is entirely acceptable,” Yvon said. He spoke firmly, though his eyes were haunted by doubt.


    “You’ve written out the ledger, done your calculations, and told yourself that your cruelty may be written off.”


    Yvon glumly nodded.


    “Seems a rotten way to live.” Anya pulled down Yvon’s shirt and hopped onto his desk.


    “Do you hate me for what I have done?” He looked away, over the balcony. It was a moonless night, and the garden and the trees faded into sightless obscurity.


    “Maybe I could if I tried. Even if Benoit recovers, I don’t think Manon will ever be quite right again. That seems worthy enough of hatred.”


    Anya thought of Manon’s anger, and the pain with which she subdued it. There was something within her, a spark of indignation, but it failed to kindle.


    “Anya, I am not quite familiar with the methods of your arts, but when you hold your knife within your palm, do you not feel a weight crushing down on you? That you will falter, and someone will die by your hand?”


    “I used to. I think it was the war-fields where it changed. I saw men with no legs, or no arms, or worms crawling around their still-beatings hearts. Over and over and over, until the pain of doing nothing got worse than the fear I would hurt them more.”


    “You have a kind heart.”


    “I don’t think so. No more than you have a cruel one.”


    Yvon leaned forward, hiding his tears with his hands.


    “Do you know what I thought about, in that moment? Not our expulsion from the hunting council, or the Ansgardes and the Ribemonts at our throats. I thought of my father, scorning me for my weakness. ‘Keep a firm bite on their necks, boy. The second they sense you letting up, they will screw you like a cur, and there will be no business to be had.’ I must be the most pathetic creature in all of Gaul.”


    Anya felt the urge to flee, building up her legs and thrumming in her buttocks. The wolf before her had the odd mix of vulnerability and immiseration that made men particularly dangerous. He could snap at any moment, pounce on her, use her as cheap relief until she was spent. And yet she found herself reaching out, placing a paw faintly on his shoulder. She had to make him right.


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    “Then why not let him go, and wash your hands of it? Why change your decision?”


    “The situation had changed.”


    “Not so much.”


    “You made me strong enough to act.”


    “I didn’t alter your mind. My arts can’t really do that in any case.”


    “Yhrnhhh.”


    Yvon whimpered, drawing his head tightly inwards with his hands. Anya felt his pulse stutter and jump, and saw his tail curl between the legs of his chair.


    “I need you, and I could not bear to see you disappointed in me again.”


    “You…need me?”


    The wolf sniffled in response. Tears dripped from his snout.


    “I have known you for less than three months, and already I cannot imagine being without you. I suppressed these emotions at first, thinking them disloyal to Sofia, but to remove them would be to tear out a second heart. I need you as a canvas needs paint.”


    Anya pulled her hand away, and shifted her weight towards the edge of the table.


    “Why?”


    “Why? You are possessed of a remarkable mind and stalwart conviction. Whenever I have been unreasonable, you have acted with the grace I could not find within myself, and turned me towards my better nature.”


    “I don’t think-”


    Yvon twisted even further, seeming to wish to squirm his way out of reality itself, and his words fell to a whisper.


    “When you changed me, I felt your heartbeat for the first time. I was shocked at how quick it was, how delicate. And..”


    Anya was suddenly aware of the breeze from the balcony, the way its biting chill raked through her fur. Her heart began to pound in her chest, and shadows clawed at the edges of her vision. She brought a hand over her chest. Willed herself to be calm.


    “You shouldn’t feel that way about me.”


    Yvon cracked open his fingers, and raised his tear-stained head to her. His eyes were wide, searching.


    “Shouldn’t?”


    A flash of anger, hot and lucid. There was something repulsive in his desperate misery.


    “What are you looking for? Absolution for what you have done? Do you meant to make an altar of my bosom, and libations of my menses? Fuck your sins out, leave them dripping from my groin? Have me reach inside you, and pull out whatever worm is gnawing at your conscience?”


    “What?! Anna, I didn’t…I would never…”


    “When Manon came before you, did you see nothing but an opportunity to purchase my affections? Was Benoit no more than a token to gain access my loins? Go into Parisi, and find an indulgence-peddling cleric and a moll. You will find their prices far more reasonable.”


    “By the saints, all I need-”


    Without thought, she palmed her knife. His blood came into focus. Three seconds, and the room would be painted with his viscera. If he truly detested his body, it could be expunged.


    No. Not this time.


    She put down the knife, and struck his snout with her palm. There was a soft fwip as it connected.


    Yvon fell out of his chair, though more due to his own surprise than any force she had imparted. Flood of emotions flickered across it - shock, arousal, hollow loathing. His ears pulled back in submission and he instinctively twisted to show his belly.


    You hurt him, you really hurt him.


    Darkness, rushing up to meet her.


    Her words had run out, and the shadows flocked inwards, quick and clawed and mocking. They seemed to force into her throat, viscous feathers filling her lungs…


    Bloodstained whore.


    Come on, do something, make it right.


    “Yvon, Yvon, I’m here, forgive me, I didn’t mean to hurt you.”


    She fell to the floor, unsteady on her feat. His tears caught the flickering candlelight. She wiped them away.


    “I am fine, really. No more or less than what I deserve,” he croaked.


    Anya took one of his arms and maneuvered his palm to caress her cheek. Its weight required both of her hands to heft.


    Quiet, broken only by fur brushing against fur. His hand lowered to her neck, as if he was contemplating what little force would be required to crush it, and then further to rest upon her shoulder. She waited for his rage, but none came. Beyond the balcony, a wind whipped the lake into uneven breaks.


    “Yvon, if you wish to have me, to devour or to rut, you should do so. But there is nothing here but meat and blood and bones.”


    “Anya, what has gotten into you?”


    “I was momentarily possessed, and spoke nonsense. Probably a consequence of a feminine condition, or overuse of arts.”


    “No, you seemed entirely lucid before, and raised several sensible points in my disfavor. It is now that you are acting strangely, and I feel I am conversing with an entirely different rabbit, one that ill becomes the Anya I know.”


    Anya did not know how to respond.


    “By all the saints, you are beautiful. Perhaps if I had admitted it to myself sooner, things would be different between us.”


    He released her, and she lay down next to him, her head facing away from his. The candle on the desk was nearly spent. Anya closed her eyes for a long while, and felt herself drifting away.


    “Well, your answer is clear, and I will accept it. It seems I have made a fool of myself once again.”


    Anya heard Yvon get up and slink around her to his closet.


    “I will be taking a stroll by the lake, in the hope that I might clear my head. Renee is handling the night service tonight, so the bell by the door should summon her. In the morning, I think I will also inform Sofia that she has been far too hard on you of late. She may choose to ignore me, of course, but my word carries some meager weight in her court.”


    The door clicked, and she was alone.


    She redressed, and managed to make it to one of Yvon’s couches before going prone once again. She stayed there for perhaps an hour, Benoit’s hollow visage running circles in her mind.


    As soon as she could, she would need to visit Manon, and offer whatever support she could. The thought brought some comfort.


    Finding herself unable to sleep, she wandered to Yvon’s desk in curiosity, and examined the parcel. She took her knife, and-


    Really? This blade has tasted the blood of kings and false gods, and you would use it as a letter-opener?


    She found Yvon’s letter-knife, and cut the package open.


    A long-dead rabbit’s paw tumbled out.