Zara pulled the shop door closed and locked it, then wove through the shoppers still crowding the merchant district. As she waited for the street stall vendor to wrap her order for dinner – two stuffed pastries, one savoury, one sweet – she scanned the news sheets pinned to a rickety wooden noticeboard between two stalls.

She snorted. “Must be a slow news day if they’re making headlines out of some drunk’s hallucinations.”

The vendor replied. “I thought the same till I read the report. Your so-called drunk was the king himself, along with half his court.”

Zara pulled a face, unconvinced. While the king had a reputation for being uncannily observant, those around him would swear on the temple altar that the sky was purple if it could advance their wealth or influence in any way.

The stall keeper held out a paper-wrapped bundle. “Here you go, and don’t go bumping into any strangwolves on your way home.”

“I’ll keep a close eye on the shadows.”

Zara grinned as she slipped back into the flow of people, if a silver wolf the size of a horse decided to take a stroll in Mydor City, it wouldn’t be hiding in back-alley corners.

She paused to buy a jar of watered mead and eavesdropped on the conversation of a well-dressed group sitting in an open courtyard behind the stall.

“I heard it was when the King and his five dukes were hunting. The strangwolf put itself between the hunters and a pair of ordinary wolves.”

Another voice chimed in. “And it spoke to them.”

Zara pretended to reorganise the contents of her shopping bag as other members of the group scoffed.

A third voice, male, with the weight of certainty behind it cut through the disbelief. “I was there. It looked straight at His Majesty and said ‘why have you stopped trying to break your curse? Is the death of children so palatable to you?’ then it glared at each of the dukes and added ‘be ready to answer for your inaction.’”

A babble of voices exclaiming and arguing drowned out any further information. Zara tucked the jar into a newly vacant corner of her bag and continued on.

Fifteen minutes later, she trudged up the stairs to her rented room and pulled out her key. The door opened and a golden vision of blonde hair, honey skin and green eyes stood before her. “There you are! I’ve been waiting for ever.”

Zara shouldered past Angelie then stopped, eyeing the food-covered table suspiciously. “What do you want?”

Angelie tried to look innocent, then sighed and plopped down to sit on the edge of the bed. “I need your help and you’re going to be grumpy about it. So eat first because at least that way I’m not dealing with hungry-grumpy Zara as well as normal-grumpy Zara.”

There wasn’t much to say to that. Angelie was more than capable of staying silent in the face of Zara’s curiosity, she’d done it many times to get her way when they were children.

Emptying her bag, Zara sat in the room’s one chair and applied herself to the food. She was hungry, and it was nice to feed her full appetite, rather than just the human one, before it became a need. Strangwolves burned through a lot of energy, even in the form of a young woman.

She scooted the chair around to face her friend, still nibbling on the sweet pastry, and tilted her head in question.

Angelie gripped her hands together, then said. “You’ve seen the news about the strangwolf.”

Zara nodded.

“If I could paint it, and present the portrait to the king, I’d have the attention of all the nobles. It’s my chance to become court artist. I know the one they saw wasn’t you. You’re not the type to look for attention in either form. But if you could find them, and convince them to sit for me, I’ll be able to eclipse those rich-born, talentless daubers the court’s cooing over right now and show them what a real artist can do.”

Sounded like Bern and Mika’s connections were working hard for them, it would be fun to see the taken down a peg or two. They’d made Angelie’s life miserable at the art school. Or they’d tried. Mysterious things kept happening though… Zara smirked at some satisfying memories.

Angelie leaned forward. “So you’ll do it?”

Zara paused long enough for her friend’s expression to turn from hopeful to anxious. She was asking for a lot, but she knew it. It might also be a chance for Zara to send an overdue message to one of the King’s Dukes.

She finished the pastry and stood. “I’ll see what I can do, but if they do agree, I have a condition of my own.”

Angelie grabbed her in a hug. “I’ll do it.”

“You don’t even know what I want yet.”

“It doesn’t matter. You’ll never ask for anything I can’t or won’t do. So I’ll do it.”

Zara leaned back and looked her friend in the eye. “I want to be in the portrait as well.”

Angelie’s jaw dropped. “As a….?”

“No, as the me you see right now. And I’d like you to call the painting ‘Portrait of an Impossibility’.”

That made Angelie grin and pointedly not ask any further questions. She left soon after.

***

Zara only opened her apothecary store every second day. She preferred to grow or forage for the herbal elements of her stock, and it needed to be as fresh as possible.

She spent the morning at her allotment outside the old city walls, then headed for the forest. It was her usual routine, no one would even notice.

Once in the deep dappled green of the trees, Zara made for a clearing and an ancient stone circle her mother had taken her to many times before she’d left.

This was where she’d met other strangwolves, and learned the ways and whys of this hidden side of her heritage. It had been years since she’d seen another of her kind, but she left messages in a particular hollow at the base of one of the stones, and received news from beyond the kingdom, news of her mother and other snippets impossible to share, in return.

Today, she tucked a folded news sheet – the one with the strangwolf article – into the gap, and asked to meet the subject of the piece at the circle two days hence.