Chapter 33

Asher

Her scent is changing.

Nobody else seems to notice. Maybe nobody else is paying attention. But I’m a tracker, and I’ve been paying attention to Neve Ashby since the moment I walked into that diner in Montana, and I’d know.

At Christmas, it was one ember in a cold hearth. Barely there. I had to breathe twice to be sure of it.

Now, a month into Mercy’s treatment, it’s still faint. Still wrong in ways I can’t put a name to. But it’s there. When she passes me in the hall, I catch it before I see her: snowmelt, cold and clean, and under it something I haven’t smelled since we were kids. Violets. Faint, there and gone and there again. Alive.

Getting stronger.

I don’t tell anyone. I’m not sure why. Maybe I’m afraid that if I say it out loud, it’ll stop.

I find out what Dom did from Ray, of all people. And Ray doesn’t even mean to tell me.

He calls me on Thursday night from a motel somewhere on the coast. I see his name on the scr