Lena nodded, though as he looked over his shoulder Ammas saw the girl bending down and whispering comfort to Carala again. The cursewright shook his head, recalling the same stubbornness she had displayed at Orson's exorcism. Silently he cursed Casimir's absence. He hadn't wanted the boy to hear the details of the princess's seduction, but he could have used his apprentice's help right now.

When he returned to the altar Lena had drawn a respectable distance away. Carala lay quietly, a glassy look in her eyes that told Ammas the charm on her neck had put the wolf's blood into a deep doze, and she was liable to soon follow. Certain words from the Therkostic tongue, the language of the worlds beyond, would send it to an even deeper sleep, but that he wouldn't do until the diagnosis was complete. "All right, Lena. Stand a little further back. Mari?"

"Carala, Princess of the House of Deyn," she said thickly and dreamily. Lena's eyes widened.

Ammas looked at her and shook his head, his lips pressed tightly together.

Lena nodded, but the look of amazement on her face diminished not a whit.

He would deal with it after Carala had taken the cure. Until then, treating her was all Ammas could afford to worry about. "Carala, then. Let me gauge your heartbeat."

She nodded languidly and arched almost sensually up to Ammas's touch as his hand pressed gently against her left breast, his brows knitting together as he read her pulse. Slow, a bit slower than normal, but that was to be expected with the charm's influence.

The last step in the diagnosis he did not announce to Carala, seeking to catch the wolf unawares. From the pouch that held his twinhooks he drew a dark blue crystal flask full of a thick liquid that was colorless and, to a human nose, odorless.

But the liquid was not odorless to a werewolf's nose.

Carala reacted at once as he twisted off the cap. A low, aching gasp escaped her lips. Her spine curved in obvious need, seeking to press her breast to his hand more fully. Ammas maintained his palm where it needed to be, but not before he felt the shape of the girl's nipple at the edge of his hand, perking through the thin fabric of the undershirt, marbling into aroused hardness. Her fingers and toes began to flex and unflex.

Ammas knew already that the diagnosis was positive, but the instructions for this procedure were adamant: he could not soothe the wolf, put it back in its cage, until he had seen an indisputable sign of its presence, and sexual arousal was not enough. So, steeling himself, sweating as profusely as he had before he had tended to Lena's father, he began to raise the flask of wolf essence closer and closer to the princess's flaring nostrils.

The sign he needed appeared almost at once.

Her lips parted, lusher than they had once been, given a sweet fullness by the new fangs behind them. Lasciviously her tongue darted at her lips, her bound hands curling into loose fists, her hips rising as the sudden but growing need in her loins compelled her to seek out something to satisfy it. Ammas's gaze darted to her fingertips, seeing the telltale black color filling her nails. Under his palm, the slow heartbeat began to quicken, first to the rapid pulse of a human being undergoing some excited or terrified condition, then into the far quicker beat of a werewolf.

The princess's heart was now a wolf's heart.

Quickly he moved to cap the flask, concealing the scent from the werewolf princess. A low, cheated howl escaped her lips, even as the fangs behind them began to shrink. The sound of it made Lena shudder visibly. But the wolf was not retreating entirely, and as Ammas lifted his hand from Carala's breast to the charm at her throat, his eyes met hers.

Ammas was staring into the eyes of a she-wolf, amber and wild and full of a passion that was utterly inhuman.

Staring into those eyes he caressed the golden symbol on the princess's throat, whispering Therkostic utterances. She trembled. Amber shifted slowly but smoothly to hazel. Her heartbeat began to quell. The fangs vanished entirely. And the feral smell of her, which had become an almost physical presence, diminished back to the ordinary aroma of a hard-traveled woman in need of a bath.

"Rest now, Carala," he murmured. At once the princess fell asleep. Ammas beckoned Lena to the altar, and together they undid her bonds.

"Ammas," Lena whispered, "is she really the -- "

"Not now," he replied curtly. Lena didn't argue. Carala's arms drifted down to her sides as they were unbound, a soft cry in her throat. She began to shiver. Ammas drew the blanket back up to her chin. "I need to mix the cure. Keep her company. If she sickens, call out. I'm not going far. And if she wakens," he fixed Lena with a focused stare, "do not question her about her name. You and I will discuss it privately. As far as you know, she's Mari. I doubt she'll remember much."

"Of course, Ammas." She sounded abashed.

As he had told Carala, the cure was not a difficult one, though it did contain a few rare ingredients. Aconite (of course) added to base of sunflower oil, in a suspension of the dregs of a wine fermented in wormwood barrels. Less than a dozen other ingredients. A rueful smile touched his lips as he reached for one of the numerous skull-shaped vials in this makeshift alchemical laboratory: it contained dried aardgold, of which he needed precisely eight grains. Normally such a dosage would be the type a Yearsend reveler would take before going to his favorite tavern or gaming den. But in conjunction with the other ingredients, the princess would be feeling considerably less ready to indulge any carnal hunger.

Around forty minutes after he and Lena had undone the princess's bonds, he returned to the chancel, a goblet of a thick dark liquid in one hand. Lena and the princess were sitting side by side on the altar now, the Lioness girl with a comforting arm around her, the princess clad in her oversized shirt and breeches. Carala looked pale and drawn, but not entirely unhappy. Lena smiled up at Ammas as he drew near.

"I told you it wouldn't be long, Mari. Didn't I say Ammas knew his trade?"

Ammas smiled. "How are you feeling?"

Carala wet her lips. "Tired. Like I did the morning after -- " She looked warily at Lena.

"After you encountered the werewolf who infected you?"

Carala nodded gratefully. Lena gave the princess's shoulder a gentle squeeze and slipped off the altar. "She did very well, didn't she, Ammas? Braver than I was when my father was taken ill."

"Well I will agree she was brave." Ammas raised the goblet up but did not yet give it to her. "I've confirmed to my satisfaction you have the wolf's blood sickness."

"I told you I was not lying, Master Cursewright." A touch of asperity lingered in her voice, but no real rancor.

"Plainly you were not," smiled Ammas. "Take this. Drink slowly."

The princess took the goblet in both hands, making a face as she lifted it to her nose. "It smells ghastly," she groaned. "What in the gods' names is in this?"

"Mostly bitter wine with some specific herbs. I'd be happy to share the recipe, if I can be assured I won't be beheaded for disseminating cursewright lore."

The princess was in no mood for jest, apparently. Hesitantly she took a small sip. "Ugh," she spluttered, shuddering.

"I must warn you not to spit it out, however bad it tastes," Ammas said gently. "This is not guesswork. It's a precise dose, and any you miss I'll simply have to brew again. If it takes you an hour to drink it, that's fine. If you want sugar, I can add some. We'll both wait with you."

"Definitely," Lena agreed, and the hope in her voice that she wouldn't have to go back to the Lioness tonight was unmistakable.

"I understand," the princess murmured, and took a longer sip. Though she still pulled a face, she didn't shudder this time. "What else needs to be done, Master Cursewright?"

"I observe you for the next twelve hours. Afterward, I conduct another diagnosis."

Calara's face fell. "You have to strip and bind me again?"

"Not bind you. But due to where you were bitten, I do need you to remove your breeches again. I'm sure Lena would be happy to observe us."

Lena laughed. "You should be proud of your thighs, Mari. If it were me, I'd be charging him to look at them."

The princess blushed with a wan smile. "Why do you need to inspect the bite again?"

Ammas drew his twinhooks and extended the silver prongs. "This is what you felt scalding you. I barely grazed you with it. But because it is pure silver, its touch was agony to you. I'll want to test that one last time."

He offered it to her. The princess was as fascinated by it as she had been by his cursewright's hat. "What a wonderful little tool. Does it have other uses?"

Ammas smiled, again reminded of Casimir's inquisitiveness. "A few. Sometimes -- "

"Ah!" Carala hissed, clutching her hand to her chest. The wand clattered to the mosaic floor. Her fingertips had brushed against the silver segment. "My apologies, I should have -- "

Ammas smiled and knelt down in front of her. "No harm done, Mari." His fingers had curled around the center of the wand when something shattered directly beside him, startling him back to his feet, his hands spread defensively, one going instinctively to the hilt of his skymetal dagger. The goblet had tumbled from the princess's hand, exploding on the mosaic floor, its half-drunk contents splattered across the tiled saints in a crazed pattern that looked like old blood.

Ammas looked up at the Princess Carala. She was trembling violently. That lovely pale face now looked deathly ill, white as the skulls grinning in the ruined temple's catacombs. The cursewright stared in silent puzzlement, more stunned than he had been upon learning the princess's identity.

Finally he found his voice. "Mari? Carala?"

The princess turned her gaze on him. In it Ammas saw no remonstrance for using her real name, only bewilderment and growing terror. Suddenly she fell forward with a belching, rattling cry, collapsing to the mosaic. One of her hands caught on the broken glass, blood flowing from her fair skin. Presently she vomited. Pieces of beef and bits of vegetable could be seen. Moaning, gurgling, she raised her bewildered eyes to Ammas. He had once seen eyes like that, flooded with grief and horror, staring from the face of a man who had just been beheaded.

Ammas Mourthia had worked as a cursewright since the age of nine. He had received his notice of Imperial consent two years younger than Carala Deyn was now. He had seen firsthand the Yellow Death and had been forever marked by the experience. He had seen demons, werewolves, mad sorcerers, and walking corpses of every variety. Before his exile he had roamed some of the most ancient and vast archives of knowledge the human race had ever assembled. And nowhere had he seen or heard of what was now happening to Princess Carala Deyn.

Those hazel eyes that she had inherited from the Emperor were shifting to wolfish amber eyes, then back to hazel. Not in the smooth, almost hypnotic way a werewolf's eyes will shift colors during its metamorphosis, but in an erratic, spastic pulse of hazel-to-amber-to-hazel, her pupils dilating as if she had been given fulsa drops in her eyes. Tears were pouring down her face, not tears of grief but as if her eyes had been flushed with vinegar. One fang pushed out a corner of her lip, then fell to the floor in a patter of blood. Tufts of fur were sprouting on her few patches of visible skin, dark as her hair and soft as silk, then falling out in raggedy patches.

The princess pitched backward and began to vomit again, now choking on it.

Shocked though he was, Ammas sprang into action. What he could do he had no idea, but something had to be tried. He leapt forward, his hat flying from his head, and rolled the princess to her side. A slow thick stream of vomit poured from the corner of her mouth, but she was no longer choking. Still the spasming changes went on and on, smears of blood now welling up in the wake of the sprouting fur. Heedless of the vomit on her neck, Ammas pressed his mouth directly to Carala's throat. Urgently, desperately, he began to whisper Therkostic words against her sweat-soaked flesh, against the little charm he could feel against his lips.

The vomiting ceased. The fur withered and grew no more. Her eyes, however, remained a muddy brown, neither human nor wolf. And she began to scream in agony.

Ammas raised his horrified gaze to Lena, who looked worse by far than she had at any time in her father's garret. "Go -- Lena -- down, down, the catacombs -- black leather case, the first niche -- hurry, gods, gods, Lena, you have to hurry --"

Lena turned and sprinted down the stair behind the altar, though she had never gone into those catacombs before and was terrified of what might be down there.

Ammas watched her for the barest of seconds then pressed his lips to Carala's throat again, chanting those strange words and hoping against hope that Lena got back to him with the leather case that held the only tools he could think might salvage this situation before the princess died.