He came over to my chair and dropped down on one knee with a grunt. His one eye darted between both of mine. “I owe you a tremendous apology, Remi. While I would like to blame my behavior entirely on that Manip,” he sputtered, “I’m afraid I was also just a foolish old man. Can you forgive me?”
Victoria’s words about the Gladwells having to be forced into species diversity rang inside my head. “Thank you, but I’m not the one you really need to be asking. Laith could have been killed that night. He deserved better than that.”
The Chancellor winced. “Yes, of course. We will be speaking to Laith soon.” He stood with another grunt. “I’m just happy we had such a clever student here to come up with that idea to call Ms. Shirley.”
The Chancellor sat in the chair next to me. The Vice-Chancellor had already taken up her perch behind her desk. She folded her hands now and peered at me. “Tell us, Remi, when did you realize that Ms. Shirley possessed the scent-sight? And don’t say it was because she can sniff out the books. That’s a trick most shifters can master in no time. But the scent-sight…” She leaned forward. “That’s something much different.”
I squirmed in my chair. “I didn’t know it had a name. I just knew that she could read with her nose. And the rest was just a lucky guess.”
The Chancellor bent over, his elbows on his knees. “That’s a pretty big jump from reading a book to reading people’s souls.”
I shrugged. “Like I said. Lucky guess.”
The Vice Chancellor tapped a pencil against her temple. “Are you sure you’ve never experienced anything like that yourself? Maybe without even realizing it?”
I chewed on my lip like I was thinking about it, and then shook my head. “No, ma’am.”
“Because we’ve been wondering…” The Chancellor clasped his hands together. “We’ve been wondering if maybe that was how you realized what Helms was yourself?”
“No. I already told you. He wasn’t acting right. And then it just dawned on me.” I shrugged again. “That’s really all.”
The Gladwells exchanged an unreadable glance. The Chancellor leaned back in his chair and crossed one ankle over his knee. “Okay, if you say so.”
“But if you ever do experience anything like that,” the Vice-Chancellor said, “it would be very important for you to let us know immediately.”
Had Helms squealed at some point? Had he realized he was never going back to Hawtrey and made a plea deal? What if they had accepted it? What if he was still out there?
My heart sped up, and I felt my wolf pushing against the edges of my skin, but I silently told her to stay. It worked remarkably well, I had discovered these past three weeks.
“It’s an extremely rare gift,” the Chancellor said. “And extremely valuable, as you’ve seen for yourself. It’s also how we are able to locate new shifters. So anyone who possessed that gift… well, they would be very well taken care of.”
I couldn’t hold back my incredulous stare. “Ms. Shirley lives in a dog bed under the stairs.”
Both Gladwells laughed—kind of nervously, in my opinion. “Ms. Shirley is a character, alright,” the Chancellor said, fidgeting with his eye patch. “We’ve offered her much better accommodations, time and time again.”
“So please don’t let that deter you, if you have anything you’d like to say,” the Vice-Chancellor said, eyes urging me to spill it.
And maybe I should. I mean, Ms. Shirley really was old and who knew how many of her screws had come loose. And Helms… well, why should I believe anything Helms ever said? My gift, as they called it, had been a little overwhelming since I’d started shifting again. My days were full of uninvited whiffs and their corresponding images. It was distracting, and I feared it was only going to get worse.
What if that’s what made Ms. Shirley blind?
I licked my lips, and maybe I was going to confess and maybe I wasn’t. I’ll never know, because at exactly that moment, I caught one of those whiffs. It took every ounce of strength in me not to turn my head in the direction it was drifting from, but I knew any movement like that would give me away.
I drew in a regular breath, holding it briefly inside my lungs so my brain had a chance to work out what it was trying to show me. I smelled manila folders and paper and ink. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought it was coming from the filing cabinet off to the side of me.
The Gladwells watched me closely. I swallowed the lump of fear rising in my throat. Something about the smell was triggering my lupine alarm system.
“I don’t have the scent-sight,” I said. “I promise.”
The smell jammed itself up inside my nose, making it suddenly hard to breathe. A series of images flashed through my mind, indecipherable, except…
Rahm?
I latched onto his face, pulling that image in for closer inspection.
And that’s exactly what it was. An image. A photograph. Clipped to a stack of papers tucked into a manila envelope. Just like Jake’s. Just like Victoria’s.
Did they find him?
Excitement built in my chest with every breath. If they had a picture that recent—one I’d never seen on his social media—then they must know where he is. Were they going to tell me that next?
Play it cool, Remi. Be patient.
But then words came into focus. His name. His age. His…
His species?!
I must have let out a surprised whimper because both Gladwells leaned forward with concern—or interest—brimming in their eyes. I heard them distantly asking if I was okay, but I waved the questions off, trying to focus on these words that made no sense.
My brother wasn’t a shifter. That was impossible. The Gladwells had told me so.
But there it was. Clear as if I were looking at a page resting on the table.
Rahm St. James, age 18, early admission, gray wolf.
My fingers gripped the edge of my chair as the words started to float away.
No! Wait!
There was something more flickering at the edges. If I could just get a better smell… I pretended to sneeze. Well, half-sneeze. The kind where you suck in the air and then nothing comes back out. I made a show out of rubbing my nose.
The scent swirled through the maze of my brain and punched me right in the heart as the next line of words became clear.
Alias: Robert Borden
Status: Culled
***
End of Book One
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Acknowledgements:
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Academy of Shifters: Werewolves 101 Page 19
