Night's End by Yasmine Galenorn

seldom takes form in human shape anymore. He’s one of the elders of your father’s people, you know.”
    â€œI didn’t know, but it doesn’t surprise me.” The wind was picking up, and the snow was starting to fall harder. As much as I wanted to shift into owl form and follow my grandfather, he was right—now was not the time.
    When—
if
—we all came out of this war intact, then I would try to forge a relationship with him. A spark in my heart told me that I’d be very disappointed if it didn’t work out. Family had always been important to me, but I’d had to push the desire into the background in order to put my focus where it had mattered: surviving day to day, and sometimes hour to hour.
    â€œWe’d best get a move on. Rhiannon will be waiting for us—I sent word for them to meet us at the Veil House, and though I said it was important, I gave no clue as to what, in case the messenger . . . well . . . in case whoever carried the message happens to be the spy we’re searching for.”
    â€œWhat will you do about the others? About Luna and Peyton and Kaylin?” Grieve let out a heavy sigh. “We have to figure out a way to test them.”
    â€œI know what to do about everyone except Kaylin, but in a sense he’s the most important. He can examine their minds, but who can look into his heart and find out if he’s safe?”
    A little voice inside me whispered,
How can you ever trust anybody? Sometimes you just have to step away from the fear and take a leap of faith.
    With that thought ringing in my mind, I nodded, and we headed out again as Strict made his good-byes and returned to the Eldburry Barrow.

    The Veil House had belonged to my aunt Heather, and before her my grandmother and great-aunt. From what little I knew, the house at the end of Vyne Street had belonged to the women of the family for generations. It was also centered over a major ley line—an energy vortex. Aunt Heather had figured that out from notes in a journal we’d found. What she’d planned to do with that knowledge neither Rhiannon nor myself had figured out, and we might never know, but even if we couldn’t reason out why Heather had researched it, we might be able to make use of the knowledge in the future.
    With Rhiannon and myself living in our respective realms, Luna, Peyton, and Kaylin had taken over the house and were keeping it safe for us. Luna had assumed the business I’d planned to open—Wind Chimes, a magical emporium. Peyton was working hard to open her magical PI firm—Mystical Eye Investigations. They would host them from the house to avoid having to rent out space in town.
    A part of me mourned the loss of my plans and the loss of the life I’d started to lay out for myself. Whoever said you can never go home again was right. No matter how good—or bad—your home was like, when you try to revisit the past, you find that everything has shifted.
    And for me, that shift had been drastic. On one hand, I had a purpose; I had a new life and an amazing one at that. On the other, I’d been dragged in from a ragtag existence, but one where I understood the game. I knew how to hedge my odds on the streets, but coming back to New Forest, I’d plunged into a surreal nightmare. As rough as things had been walking the underbelly of the cities, I’d never had to kill before. I’d never had to fight a war.
    The edge of the Golden Wood opened into the backyard of the Veil House, which was at the end of a cul-de-sac on Vyne Street. Seeing the house standing there, rebuilt from the fire that had destroyed part of it, made me long for my old life even more. I’d never aspired to be a queen. I’d never once played the princess when I was a child. Now the neighborhood and the house looked so cozy and inviting that I let out a soft sigh. Grieve put his hand on my arm, and my wolf shifted on my