Chapter 3

The Old Aqueduct was a crumbling scar in the city wall where the river used to flow in. Now, it was just a muddy tunnel barred by a rusted iron grate that looked out over the wild forest beyond the moat.

Thomas dragged Isolde into the tunnel. She could no longer stand on two legs. She was crawling, her limbs twisted and wrong, halfway between human and beast. Her dress was in tatters, hanging off a body that was growing too large for it.

"The grate," Thomas gasped, his lungs burning.

He threw himself at the iron bars. They were thick as his wrist and pitted with rust. He gripped the bottom of the grate and pulled.

It didn't move.

Behind him, Isolde let out a low, vibrating growl. It wasn't pain anymore. It was hunger.

"Come on!" Thomas roared, putting his back into it. He strained until blood vessels popped in his eyes, until he felt something tear in his shoulder. "Open, damn you!"

The metal shrieked. A shower of rust rained down. The grate lifted six inches. Then a foot.

It was enough.

Thomas turned. Isolde was writhing in the mud. The transformation was in its final, agonizing throes. Her spine snapped into alignment with a wet *thud*. She arched her back, and the last of her human whimpers died, replaced by a deep, chesty huff of air.

She was huge. A wolf the size of a pony, covered in matted black fur and blood.

She tried to stand on the slick stone, her claws scrabbling for purchase.

"Go!" Thomas yelled, grabbing her hindquarters and shoving her toward the gap. "Get out! Before you hurt someone!"

The wolf snarled, snapping backward at him, but the instinct for freedom was stronger. She flattened her belly against the mud and slithered under the lifted grate.

She splashed into the shallow water of the moat outside.

Thomas let the grate crash back down. He collapsed against the cold bars, his chest heaving, his hands raw and bleeding.

"Isolde," he whispered.

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