I’d taken the bus to Exeter, so I’d caught one back again. Because, even though Arian had said he didn’t mind driving me around, I still wanted to feel as though I wasn’t taking advantage. Especially since they were rather generously giving me a small allowance which wasn’t really being spent on anything else right now. So when I arrived back at the cottage to see someone else’s car parked in the driveway, I got more than a little worried I’d taken a wrong turn somewhere.

I double checked my surroundings. Everything else looked the way it was supposed to. The only thing out of place was the car. Cautiously I made my way forward. That’s when I noticed the front door had been left a little ajar, like it had bounced back after being closed too quickly, and no one had noticed. That made my stomach knot even more than it already was. I’d been living with them for almost a month now, I knew exactly how careful they were with this kind of thing.

Arriving on the front doorstep I was able to hear voices coming from inside.

‘You’re just lucky I had my sister with me,’ an unfamiliar male voice was speaking. ‘What the hell were you thinking? Or, more to the point, what the hell were you running from?’

‘I thought it wasn’t your policy to ask questions,’ Silas’s voice, too tense to have even a note of her usual bubbliness in it.

‘It is when daughters of the Zodiac are involved,’ the male voice made a disgruntled noise. ‘Do you have any idea what your parents will do to me…?’

‘It were my fault,’ Lettie’s voice. ‘I overheard dad talking, and knew they thought they might have located Annie and Alice. Since we’re normally the ones who convince them tuh come home, I thought…. I mean… I mean, we just thought they’d run off again, we didn’t know…’

‘We didn’t tell you, because we didn’t want you getting involved,’ the man’s voice was sharp. ‘You don’t need an IQ of one hundred and fifty-nine to know if you’re not being told something, there’s probably a reason for it. It’s bad enough they have Annie and Alice, the last thing we need is for them to get you and Rose too.’

‘Yeah… I know…’

‘We’re pretty sure they didn’t see us though,’ Silas’s voice tried to sound more confident than I felt she actually was.

As they’d been talking, I’d snuck forward towards the living room, where I could hear their voices were coming from. Glancing in through the gap in the curtain I spotted a man with blond hair sat in one of the chairs, holding onto a squirming toddler who’s irises were apparently as white as her eyeballs, as was her hair. Guessing it was his voice I’d been hearing, I moved ‘round to the other side of the curtain to get a view of the rest of the room. My heart nearly stopped dead inside of me when I saw Xenia sprawled out across the floor. Over her crouched a woman, with the same white hair and eyes as the infant the man was holding. She had Xenia’s arm in her hands. An arm that was very clearly broken from the way the bone was protruding out of the skin. But, as I watched, the bone seemed to pull itself back into place again, the skin healing over the top leaving no trace of what had happened.

‘One more, then head,’ the woman’s voice had a weird gruffness to it. ‘Small one. Kay practice,’ she held her hands out in the direction the man was sitting.

I heard him give a heavy sigh, before he moved into view, passing the woman the infant, who she smothered in several kisses, before doing something with it I couldn’t really see.

‘Do you really have tuh tell our parents?’ The sound of Janey’s voice made me realise she had to be in there too. ‘You know this stuff makes my dad really uncomfortable.’

‘Your parents aren’t part of the Zodiac, so there’s no reason for me to deal with them,’ the man shot her a look. ‘But I also think you don’t need an IQ of one hundred and fifty-nine to know if I don’t tell them, your uncle will. You were seriously lucky it was my car you ran in front of. Although, knowing how things work, I doubt luck had anything to do with it.’

‘Thorn good Guardian,’ the white-haired woman spoke again. ‘Makes Thorn strong. Strong Thorn should not be lonely. Thorn should find mate. Have puppies for Kay play with.’

‘Heather we’ve been over this,’ the one now identified as Thorn pushed his glasses back up his nose, ‘my work is too important for me to waste time with any needless distractions. I’m trying to lay the groundwork for future generations to build a utopia with. That doesn’t happen without any effort.’

Those words made my insides buzz with a strange sense of realisation. If I thought his name sounded familiar when I’d first heard it, there was no doubt in my mind who this guy was now.

‘How make happy world with no puppies,’ the woman, Heather, shot him a look. ‘You find mate Thorn. Good mate. Worthy for Guardian. Make strong puppies. Puppies make happy world.’

The man rolled his eyes but didn’t say anything to that. After another moment Heather handed Thorn back the infant, before once again doing something to Xenia I couldn’t quite see. As she did I heard a car pulling into the driveway. Not wanting to get caught spying, I quietly snuck my way upstairs, hiding in my room, and waiting until the sound of voices let me know Zel and Arian were both home, and in the living room where everything appeared to be blowing up. They were making so much noise I had no problems sneaking back out of the house again.

Not really sure what I should do, I decided to go for a walk to clear my head. It felt as though I’d just been given a chasm of information and was still no closer to figuring anything out. No, that wasn’t true. I had literally just watched someone magically heal Xenia’s arm. That had really happened. I hadn’t imagined it. And I really wasn’t sure what I was supposed to feel about that, but slowly in my head I began to re-evaluate a few things.

From what I could gather so far, Silas definitely had some magical power of her own, since she’d been able to alter my emotions, even if it was only temporarily. But what about the rest of the family? The phrase you’re being loud rolled its way through my head. Did that not mean what I thought it did? I let my mind go back to all the times it or something similar to it had been said. Pretty much all of those times I didn’t feel as though I’d been making a whole load of noise, and yet somehow Xenia had still heard me. So did she just have supernaturally good hearing, like some kind of animal? Or was it something else?

As I tried to come up with all the possibilities I could, my brain kept getting stuck on the dog collars and bowls. Were my unofficial foster family a pack of werewolves? It seemed about as likely as any other explanation I could come up with, if not more so given the weird details which made so much more sense with that context. They were werewolves, and that meant Rowan was probably one too, since he’d been able to communicate with Ludo, and hadn’t thought twice about licking Neil like an excited puppy just to make him laugh.

I stopped for a moment to rest against a low wall and ask myself if I was really okay with the idea of living with werewolves. I was weirdly certain I was. Especially after I remembered how I’d felt petting Xenia that morning. I smiled to myself in this self-assured way and wondered how long it would take for them to confirm whether or not that’s what they were to me. I got the feeling they would eventually. Or at least I hoped they would. That way I could let Xenia know it was fine with me. I didn’t care that she was a werewolf, like she clearly didn’t care I hadn’t always lived as Toby.

Taking a deep breath in, I began walking back towards the cottage. I didn’t want to force them into telling me, so I was hoping by the time I got there the situation would have sorted itself out. Then it would just be a matter of patience. Although I wasn’t exactly sure how patient I was going to need to be.

***

They all had their collars on again. After how badly injured Xenia had looked from what little I could see of her earlier, I couldn’t exactly blame them for needing a little family solidarity right now. If anything it made me appreciate them all even more than I already did.

As we sat down to eat, I did my best not to examine Xenia’s arms for any signs that her bone had been poking through one of them less than a few hours ago. I also did my best not to shudder at the image of it in my head. She was fine now, and that was the bit that really mattered, wasn’t it? I did, however, allow myself to wonder whether or not Heather’s gift worked on everybody, or did it only work on certain people. And did her having that gift have anything to do with why her irises were pure white? As I glanced around at the family sat at the table with me, something told me there had to be a connection there.

Silas had powers and her irises were all black. So were Zel’s, so that probably meant he had the same powers she did, right? Both Arian and Xenia had blue eyes, and they were different shades of blue too. Arian’s were a darker, murkier kind of colour, whereas Xenia’s were a much clearer blue, more like her grandma’s. But both were comparatively normal looking. Did that mean they didn’t have any powers? It was possible, wasn’t it? That weird eyes were an indication as to whether or not you had any additional powers.

Then again that Thorn guy had pretty normal looking green eyes, and, according to the book he’d written, he was supposed to be an aura seer. So did that mean it was a lot harder to tell whether or not someone had a power from just looking at their eyes? What exactly was I missing here? I mulled it over a little more. Maybe weird eyes were only an indication you had a power if you were a werewolf…

Almost as soon as I thought it, Xenia half choked on the mouthful of drink she was taking.

‘Are you alright… puppy?’ Arian shot her a concerned look.

‘Yeah,’ she did her best to recover, ‘I’m fine.’

‘What about you Toby?’ His gaze shifted towards me. ‘You’re… being really quiet. How were things… with Rowan’s friends?’

‘Um… yeah they were pretty good, I think,’ I smiled. ‘You know, especially considering he accidently came out to them.’

Zel cocked an eyebrow, and said something I was fairly certain was accidently?

‘Um… yeah, he found it a lot harder than he thought he would, and it just kind of… came out,’ I shrugged, really not sure what else I could say.

‘How did his… friends react?’ Arian’s expression became that of a concerned older brother.

‘They told him they didn’t care, and we just kept hanging out. They’re actually pretty cool.’

‘Good, that’s good,’ Arian sighed in relief. ‘Friends… are one of the most important… things you can have. And… a true friend will accept you… no matter what,’ as he spoke his gaze slid to the area by the archway that led into the main part of the kitchen.

My gaze followed, seeing nothing. At first I felt a little confused, then I remembered about his anxieties, and realised what he meant.

‘Neil’s that kind of friend,’ I shifted my gaze back towards him.

‘I can see that,’ Arian nodded. ‘Even if… he wasn’t gay, he… seems like the loyal type. A… lot of people can go a… long time without finding… one of those. Zel and I… got lucky with Jay and… Sly. And… from what I can… tell, you got pretty lucky… with Neil.’

‘Thanks,’ I smiled, then frowned. ‘Wait, one of your friends is called Sly?’

Zel laughed and said something I was pretty sure meant he was telling me Sly was just a nickname.

‘Okay, but… how did he get it?’ I studied him for a moment. ‘I mean, how does someone end up with Sly as a nickname?’

‘It was his… older brothers doing,’ Arian shrugged. ‘Something to… do with his lisp… I think,’ his expression crinkled with thought. ‘I… I’m not sure,’ his gaze twisted towards Zel, who’s expression was pulled into a frown.

‘Uh… right… sorry… I forgot you don’t have all the memories you should,’ I squirmed.

‘It’s okay,’ Arian shot me a reassuring look. ‘I told you… before, we try not… to let it bother us too… much. It’s much better to focus… on all the new… memories we can make.’

‘Yeah,’ I smiled, hoping it looked more relaxed than I felt.

Because I felt like I’d been totally insensitive. And what business was it of mine how their friend got his nickname? Almost as soon as I thought it, other thoughts stirred their way back into my head. Because I was looking for clues they really were werewolves, and having a friend named Sly had felt like a possible clue. After all sly was a word associated with wolves and foxes, wasn’t it? Or at least I thought it was. That’s why my brain had so quickly latched onto it. Because Sly sounded like a werewolf’s name.

Then I found my brain very quickly making other connections. Was the sickness Arian and Zel had tied to them being werewolves? Is that why their speech was so weird afterwards, because they got stuck speaking wolf, or dog, or whatever, and had to relearn everything again? Arian had said Zel had been affected by it a lot worse than he had, and half the time it really did sound like Zel was making dog noises. So maybe that really was what happened. And maybe he was so hard to understand now because he couldn’t tell the difference between human speech and wolf.

I didn’t know if that idea somehow made them more amazing or more tragic, so I found myself coming down somewhere in between. I then felt really pleased with myself for managing to work out another piece of the puzzle. I mean, okay I still didn’t know for certain if I was right about this, but the more I thought about it, the more the idea just seemed to work. They were werewolves, and Zel and Silas were both a special kind of werewolf which also had additional powers of some kind. And Xenia was a werewolf with extra sensitive hearing. Which probably meant my heartbeat was the thing she was finding too loud.

That made sense. My heart was certainly racing when she was kissing me this morning. It was probably really distracting for her, but I wasn’t totally sure what I could do about that. I couldn’t just make myself relax when she was the thing making my heart race, could I? I glanced towards her, just as she started laughing at something Zel had said. She was so pretty when she laughed. She was so pretty when she did just about anything. I really wanted to be able to kiss her again without worrying about how loud I was being. So I would figure out a way to make my heart race a little less, because I knew it would be worth it.