Estelle walked ahead of Mal. She was wearing a skirt short enough that he could occasionally glimpse her lacy underwear. Evangeline would have pointed it out to him, had she been here, and they would have laughed about it. But Mal was alone with the French woman tonight. Evangeline and Walden were spending the night together at a nearby hotel. Hopefully it would mollify Walden for a few days.

"I don't suppose you'll answer me truthfully," Estelle said in French as she slowed her pace to walk by his side, "but what are you, exactly?"

"That is not a very polite question," Mal noted. "It is also an intrusive one." Evangeline had warned him that Estelle was curious about him - well, more than curious, really. She was interested in him.

Estelle shrugged her bare shoulders. Her arms were as naked as her legs, and the light blouse she was wearing had trouble containing her imposing bosom. He ought to be drooling all over her, Mal knew. She certainly seemed to expect it. But hers was not a subtle way of flirting, and Mal was more sensible to subtlety than to the absence of clothes to cover one's body. "Your French is impeccable," she said, ignoring his remark. "Have you ever lived in France?"

He had indeed; he'd lived, at least briefly, in most parts of the world, except Antarctica. But the last time he'd been in France dated back to the 18th century. He couldn't very well tell Estelle about the two years he'd spent at Versailles, before the Revolution. "A summer near Bordeaux," he replied nonchalantly. "For my education. I have a way with languages," he added when she glanced at him sideways. "I'm multilingual."

"But what is your mother tongue? Where are you from?"

Gods, she was relentless. There was no modern language that even vaguely resembled his native language, so he cast for something obscure that she was unlikely to have heard of but in which he was fluent. "Igbo. I'm from Nigeria, but I've hardly spent any time there." About four months, back when it was still a British protectorate.

"Na-akpali," she said with a smile.

Interesting indeed, Mal thought. She was full of surprises - which was what made her so dangerous, in his opinion. Predictable people were never a threat.

"Where are you from?" he asked, eager to divert her attention from him.

"I was born in Réunion." A beautiful island, though Mal had visited it when it was still called Île de Bourbon. "Don't remember much about it, though," Estelle confessed. "It was just after the war. We were poor. We were hungry. My parents and my sister died during the big cyclone of 1948. That's about it."

Before Mal could comment on this, she went on: "But enough about me. Tell me, handsome, where do these scars come from?" She pointed to his left cheek.

Unfortunately, Mal didn't have a plausible answer at the ready; people were usually civilised enough to know that it was a rude question. "I..." Shaving accident? Bar fight? Angry grizzly bear? (That one was close enough to the truth.) "I'd rather not talk about it," he said eventually. A perfectly acceptable answer, in his opinion. She had no business asking in the first place.

Estelle chuckled lightly. "It was a woman, wasn't it?"

Curses. "Yes," he mumbled. "But I do not wish to discuss this with you, Estelle."

"Fine, fine," she said with an ample wave of her hand, her numerous bracelets clinking loudly. Then, barely two seconds later: "Where is she now? Is it the woman Evey told me about? The one who lives halfway across the world?"

"Estelle," he said, his patience wearing thin, "it is none of your business. How far is the market now?"

"It's right there," she said. She gestured toward a large, inconspicuous hedge.

Mal frowned. "Is it behind the hedge?"

She gave him an amused smile. "It's a portal, silly. Go on now, go ahead."

"You first," he countered.

"Aw, don't you trust me?" she asked innocently.

"Not in the slightest."

"Why is that? You know everything about me, everything that matters, anyway. If anyone should be distrustful, it is I."

"Well, aren't you?"

"Not in the slightest," she replied with a grin, just as she took a step inside the hedge. She disappeared, and Mal couldn't hear branches snapping within. Reluctantly, he followed after her.

He didn't feel anything as he walked into the portal, but it was one, alright. On the other side was the promised land: the Paris Shadow Market. The first thing Mal noticed was how crowded the place was, despite the hour – it was almost one in the morning. The second was that not everyone around him was strictly human, though it would be hypocritical of him to comment on this.

Estelle was conversing with a tall, hooded silhouette garbed in black, but the shape of it was wrong. It looked like it had several humps underneath its cloak. Mal decided to move closer to them, mainly to listen in on their hushed conversation, but as he took a first step, the silhouette's neck swung in his direction and it made a gurgling sound. Estelle whispered something and it went away, gliding or floating just an inch over the ground.

"Perhaps I was wrong," Estelle said as Mal joined her. "You attract more attention than I thought you would." She studied him critically. "Should have covered your face," she muttered. "You're too handsome by far." She glanced around then spotted what she was looking for. "Come with me."

There was a stall half-hidden by hanging cloths of various materials. Estelle selected one at random – it was purple with small, bronze crescent moons – and draped it over Mal's head to make it look like a cowl, showing only his eyes and nose. "Better," she said. "Now, let's get down to business." She started to sashay away from the stall.

"Are you going to pay for that?" the cloth merchant demanded in French – she had a heavy Marseille accent. She looked perfectly human, an average woman in her late forties, but her irises were a bright pink.

Estelle scoffed. "Remind me – how many favours do you owe me, Salomé? I've lost count."

"Times are hard," Salomé grumbled. "The Aurors keep ambushing us and confiscating our goods. I need the money, Estelle."

Mal wasn't sure why the Aurors would confiscate cloth, but he handed Salomé a few Sickles. "Here. I hope it covers our purchase."

Salomé stared at his hand, lips pursed, a cloying scent of suspicion and disgust wafting from her. Then, unexpectedly, she spat at his feet and spoke in English. "I don't want your money, Cursed One. Move along now, you'll scare off my customers."

Mal stood frozen, eyes wide with shock. "What did you call me?" How could she possibly know-?

Estelle was chuckling. "Don't mind her. Her cheap parlour tricks are all that she has left. Come now, we have some shopping to do." She grabbed his elbow and pulled him after her. "May I leave you to purchase the lesser ingredients while I meet with my-"

"Who was that woman?" Mal snapped.

"Just an old half-breed with the Gift," Estelle said. "Or so she claims. You do look a bit shaken, though. Maybe she was on to something, for once. Are you cursed?" she went on conversationally. "Cursed how? Cursed by whom? There might be a remedy for that here, if you tell me exactly-"

"There is no cure," Mal said through gritted teeth. He'd searched for one. Dedicated centuries to find one. The only "cure" to his immortality was death, and it wasn't easy to come by. He certainly wouldn't find it here. "Because there is no curse," he lied. "The woman was wrong. I simply didn't appreciate the way she addressed me and spat at me. It's quite rude, even by French standards."

He could barely distinguish Estelle's trademark scent of coconut and vanilla underneath the strong undercurrent of her curiosity, but she let it go. "If you say so, my pretty. Oh, look, there's your destination." She pointed toward a stall that was covered in vials of all shapes and sizes, some of them filled with colourful liquids, others containing plants or small animals. A few appeared to be empty, but were labelled nonetheless. "Here's your list. I marked down the adequate amount of money that each ingredient is worth – don't let Mehdi scam you. He loves to negotiate, but he's usually fair, if you stand up to him. I'll be back in half an hour or so." Mal took the piece of parchment and she walked away without looking back.

He approached the stall and examined some of the labels, but he was soon interrupted by the vendor – Mehdi, he assumed.

"My good sir!" the man exclaimed, spreading his arms to welcome him. "How may I be of assistance to you today?" Oddly, he spoke in English. "Ah, you have a list! Perfect. You're very organised. Let me have a look-"

"No," Mal hastened to say. He didn't want the man to see the prices Estelle had written down. "I'll tell you what I need."

"Very good, very good," Mehdi said, unabashed. "I currently have a sale on troll eyeballs, if you're interested. Three for the price of two, a real bargain!" He held up a glass vase filled with slimy eyeballs as if they were appetizers.

Mal quickly scanned his list, but thankfully troll eyeballs were not on it. "No, thank you. What I do need is…" He read the first ingredient on the parchment.

"A diricawl feather! Magnificent!" Mehdi said. "But expensive, yes, quite expensive. A Galleon for each colour on the feather, my father used to say, but worth the cost." He rummaged behind his stall and extracted a long, colourful feather. "A beauty, no? Worth all of your hard-earned Galleons."

If each colour was worth a Galleon, Mal would be Knutless before he could buy any of the other dozen ingredients he needed. "I'll take it for four Sickles." Estelle had indicated that it was worth seven, at most.

Mehdi roared with laughter. "Four Sickles! Are you here to rob me, my good sir? This is worth four Galleons, at the very least!"

"Six Sickles," Mal countered. "It looks a bit dull to me."

"Dull?" Mehdi repeated incredulously. "Are you blind?" He shoved the feather under Mal's nose. "Look at this blue, clear as a tropical sea. Look at this yellow, golden and bright as the sun! It must be worth at least two Galleons, for these two vibrant colours."

Mal pretended to be uninterested and fiddled with the label of another ingredient he needed. "How much for a spoonful of legendberry jam?" he asked.

Mehdi glanced at the vial, the feather forgotten in his hand, then he grinned at Mal. "A gourmet, are we? Three Sickles for this delicacy, good sir."

"I'll give you one." Two Sickles and seven Knuts for the jam, according to Estelle. Gods, he hoped he wouldn't have to haggle over the price of every single ingredient – it would take him all night.

Mehdi dropped his amiable merchant act for a moment and studied Mal keenly. "How about you tell me all that you need and we'll discuss the price of that list of yours afterwards?"

Mal nodded, feeling relieved, though he knew that the negotiation would be arduous. "I need soulfang venom."

Mehdi indicated a tiny crystal vial filled with dark liquid. "Best quality. I harvested it myself, at great peril to my-"

"Two graphorn tentacles," Mal continued. Mehdi started to gather the vials in a crate as Mal listed off everything on the list. "Octarine-coloured glow dust. The dying breath of a thestral. Four petrified snowflakes harvested during blackthorn winter." Some of the ingredients were quite specific, and he was afraid that Mehdi would laugh and tell him that no such thing existed, but the merchant piled vials and jars into the crate and didn't interrupt him again. "A male tabby cat's ninth life. The two pickled eyeballs of an overwintering wood frog. The squeak of an Acherontia atropos." He had no idea what that was. The Acheron was a river in Greece and – supposedly – in the Underworld, and Atropos was one of the Moirai, in Greek mythology, but that didn't tell him what that thing was supposed to be.

Mehdi did comment on that, though. "The squeak of a death's-head hawkmoth, yes, very good. You are in luck, good sir, for this is my last." He showed off an empty glass vial that fitted into the palm of his hand. "Not rare, but quite popular. I need to restock."

The squeak of a moth? Well, that was not the strangest thing he'd been asked to purchase, to be fair. There were only a couple of ingredients left. "One honeyed cockroach ootheca and, finally, some erumpent horn liquid."

This was only about a third of the ingredients they needed; Estelle had already obtained most of the rarer ones, like the thaumatagoria juice and the sopophorous bean, but it would take some time before they were delivered. She was now tracking down the person who could get them the cerebrospinal fluid of an obscurial, which was illegal. Then, of course, they would have to travel to the Underworld and several other places that humans weren't supposed to access and find the rarest ingredients of all.

Mehdi eyed him shrewdly for a moment, then rubbed his hands, smiling. "Well, if that's the last of it… Onwards to the payment of these fine goods! Let's see…" He affected to look over the merchandise in the crate, as though he didn't already know exactly how much he was going to ask for it. "Mm… Seven Sickles… Twenty-five Knuts for the tabby's ninth life… A Galleon per tentacle…" He glanced at Mal. "I hope you came prepared, my good sir. This will cost you nineteen Galleons, thirteen Sickles and two Knuts." He laughed, waving a hand. "Ah, forget about the Knuts. Nineteen G's and thirteen Sickles for you, my friend."

Oh, they were friends, now.

"Ten Galleons, Mehdi. Not a Knut more," Estelle announced in French. She stood next to Mal. "I told you not to let him walk all over you, Adam."

Mal turned to her in protest. "I didn't even have time to-"

"Bless my heart, is that the beautiful Estelle? You are a vision to these weary eyes, my dear!" Mehdi exclaimed.

"Spare me," Estelle said sharply. "Be glad that I'm willing to pay at all. You still owe me, Mehdi."

It seemed that a great many people owed Estelle, Mal noted.

"Ah, yes, indeed I do. But I owe this one nothing," he said, gesturing toward Mal. "And he is my customer."

Estelle smirked. "Ten Galleons, final offer. Otherwise we'll take our business elsewhere. I'm sure Mélusine will be happy to provide us with-"

Mehdi grimaced at the name. "If poor quality and poorer customer service are what you seek, by all means, pay the fairy a visit." He sighed with dramatic exaggeration. "Twelve Galleons, Estelle. For you, twelve Galleons. If you pay me any less, I will have to close shop."

"Oh, I doubt that," she said. "Considering the three American tourists you managed to racketeer the other night, I doubt that very much indeed. How much did you squeeze out of them, Mehdi? One hundred Galleons for a powdered mammoth tusk that was just flour, was it? I bet Auror Dubois would be interested in that information…"

Mal frowned at the crate, wondering if he'd been conned. Was there anything at all in the vial that supposedly contained a moth's squeak, or in the one with the thestral's dying breath?

"You can't prove anything," Mehdi said haughtily. "It's their fault for being so gullible, anyway. If I really had powdered mammoth tusk in my possession, I would be selling it at a much higher price and spending my next vacation in a palace in Monaco instead of a caravan in Quimper." He gave Mal a toothy grin. "Fear not. It's all good quality stuff. I wouldn't want to be on Estelle's bad side, believe me. I was just hoping to get a fair price for it all before she returned, that's all," he admitted.

"So… Ten Galleons for the crate?" Estelle said again.

"Fine, fine, you win. Take it and go, before the tourists arrive." Mal handed him ten golden coins.

"Oh, and I'm low on unspoken water," Estelle said, "so add a jug of it for me, would you?" Mehdi's face soured, but he complied without arguing.

"Mademoiselle Rivière," a deep, suave voice said.

Malkoran's neck swivelled; he hadn't heard anyone approach. The newcomer's figure and his facial features were human, but the resemblance stopped there. His skin was a bluish purple, his hair a pure white, his eyes like golden fire. Silver tattoos glittered on his cheeks and arms like minuscule stars. He was horned. Unlike most of the market's other non-human patrons, he didn't bother to cover his eerie appearance with a cloak. He was wearing dark blue dress robes, as any wizard might. He was smiling at them in a disturbing manner, but Mal couldn't quite define his scent.

"Aaravos, you sneaky Smurf," Estelle greeted him. "I was beginning to think you wouldn't show up. Do you have my order?"

"Not yet, I regret to say. There was an…unforeseen delay."

She put a hand on her hip. "What was Anqi's excuse, this time?"

"I did not bother to ask. All I know is that the merchandise will be delivered in three days. But lighten up! I will give you a discount: one per cent off for every day that you must wait. Will that appease you?" His smile widened, revealing perfect white teeth.

"Two per cent," she countered without hesitation.

Aaravos laughed; it was rich and low, and it made Mal shudder. This…man smelled wrong. The scent of magic that wafted from him smelled wrong. Otherworldly. Was he an alien, an extra-terrestrial being? He certainly looked like he belonged on another planet.

"One and a half. Final offer, Estelle. I can find another buyer, you know that. Lunaites are in high demand these days."

Lunaites? What was that, and why did Estelle need them? It wasn't on the list.

"That'll have to do, I suppose," Estelle said. "But if there's another 'unforeseen delay', I'll expect to get them for free, you understand?"

"Are you threatening me?" Aaravos said with that same creepy smile. He took a step forward. Mal planted himself in front of Estelle. "Aw, what a cute little puppy you have there!" Aaravos exclaimed. "I haven't seen one of those in a long time. It was bold of you to bring him here, Estelle. You'd do well to keep him on a leash – and out of sight. An ounce of his blood is worth more than any lunar meteorite." He patted Mal's head as if he were petting a dog, and Mal was too shocked to react. "Well, I will see you in three days, then. Toodle-oo!" He vanished in a puff of glittery mist.

Malkoran stared at the empty space in front of him. That wasn't magic. Well, not the magic he knew, anyway, the sort Evangeline and Walden used. The scent of it was too…sweet, almost sugary. He turned to Estelle to enquire about the lunaites and the strange man, but she spoke right over him. "So you're a Wolf, uh?" She smiled, and she had a ravishing smile, no doubt about it, but there was a predatory gleam in her eyes when she spoke again. "I suspected, of course, but it's good to have confirmation." She took a quick look around, and Mal noticed that a lot of people – and beings – were watching them. The silence was heavy, now that he was focusing on it. "We'd better go," Estelle murmured. "Aaravos has no use for Wolf blood, thankfully, but Salomé's a fucking blabbermouth, and the patrons who know about your kind will be all over you when they find out."

As if they could hurt him. It was impossible to harvest a Wolf's blood unless he was willing to give it. Besides, how many among this mismatched crowd knew what a Wolf was? It was surprising enough that both Aaravos and Salomé did.

And Estelle, apparently.

"I know what you're thinking, that they can't harm you," Estelle said, "and you're probably right, but you've already ruined the market for me, so let's escape quietly, shall we? We don't need another carnage like the one on Dante Street."

Mal flushed, ashamed at how quickly he had lost his self-control when he'd thought that Evangeline was dying. "Can you Disapparate us out of here?" Magic, as a rule, didn't have any effect on Wolves. For some reason, however, Side-Apparition was an exception to that rule; the only exception, as far as Malkoran knew.

"No. There are anti-Apparition wards everywhere, to prevent thievery. The portal's the only way out."

"But Aaravos-"

"Aaravos didn't Disapparate," she explained. "Our wards are useless against him. Our magic is useless against him, because it's too different from his own. Come on. We'll walk away at a normal pace, like the innocent people we are. If anyone attacks us – well, you – we'll make a run for it. I beg you, don't bite anyone."

They made their way toward the exit at a leisurely pace. Mal felt like everyone was staring at him, but he was probably being paranoid. It was impossible that so many people would know of the existence of the Wolves; there was a strict policy regarding secrecy among the pack, which his lieutenants had no doubt enforced while Mal was away. Their existence was much more secret than that of the Ancients.

They made it about twenty metres without any incident.

"I'll give you my first-born for a pint of your blood, Wolf!" a woman yelled in French. Mal frowned at her as she approached them. She was barely old enough to be called a woman; she was younger than Evangeline, sixteen or seventeen at most.

"Er…"

"Sorry, ladies, he's not interested in your bratty offspring," Estelle said loudly. "Let us pass, now, or there will be trouble."

Mal realised that a cluster of women had quickly assembled all around them, blocking their path. Estelle pushed past the first one, the girl who'd just offered him her future child, but one of the older ones grabbed Estelle's arm. "You damn witch!" she spat. "You've had him all this time, and you kept him to yourself? You selfish, evil bitch! My son died of cancer two weeks ago. He was 22, Estelle! If I'd known that there was a Wolf in the area-"

"Shut up, Hélène," Estelle growled. Her voice was low but carried a promise of pain if the woman didn't comply. "Shut the fuck up, and let us through."

Malkoran stared at them in utter confusion. What in Hades was going on here?

The woman turned to him and pointed an accusatory finger at his chest. "And you! You people have been around for Merlin knows how long, and it never occurred to you to do this one good deed for us? No, let the little people suffer! Their lives are worthless, they're inferior, and what's the point? They're gonna die anyway! You, sir, are worse than Hitler, worse than all of them Nazis. You're a horrible, horrible man. No, a creature. You're devoid of a soul, you're-"

The woman seemed out of breath when Estelle cut her off. "Alright, that's enough. Leave him alone." She drew her wand and pointed it at her own throat. When she spoke again, her voice was magically enhanced and it resonated throughout the market. "Enough! The next person who comes near us gets a hex in the face. The one after that gets eaten." She cocked her head to indicate Mal. "Have you ever seen a transformed Wolf up close?" No one replied. "I have. He stands taller than a giant. He can swallow any one of you whole. You'll be digested alive in his belly."

She was exaggerating. It didn't work like that, but Mal understood what she was doing.

"You will let us pass. You will keep your mouths shut. If anyone disobeys, I swear, the inside of his stomach will be the last thing you ever see, before the acid eats at your eyes."

Again, it was a silly threat. The inside of his stomach would be too dark to see.

"Did everyone hear that?" Estelle insisted. "For your sake, I hope so." She removed the spell that was enhancing her voice and started walking. Mal hurried after her. The crowd parted in dead silence, but their eyes followed him, accusing, condemning. The eyes of wretched humans who hadn't yet come to terms with their own mortality and the unfairness of their lives. Who never would.

Once they were safely out of reach, beyond the portal, Mal took Estelle aside. "What was that all about? I don't understand the correlation between the monetary worth of my blood and that poor woman's dead child." And the uncalled-for Hitler comparison. Mal had not been around during World War II, but he had caught up on what had happened. He'd been called many things in his long life, but never something quite as heinous as that.

Well, he did have some idea of what the forlorn mother meant, but it was ridiculous. "Wolf blood is no cure for cancer, if that's what she was implying." He'd never considered the possibility himself, but Hernán, in his on-going quest for redemption, had done experiments with his own blood (and other bodily parts). He'd spent a large part of the 19th century in a laboratory, simultaneously following the advances of Muggle medicine and magical healing.

Estelle hesitated for a moment. She smelled…embarrassed. "I'm well aware of that. It's Nicolas's fault, okay? When he figured out what you people were, he assumed that your blood had magical properties that could work wonders, perhaps miracles, in several fields, including alchemy, potion-making, healing. He was obsessed about it."

"He must have been sorely disappointed," Mal murmured. In over seventy years of research, Hernán had discovered exactly two uses of Wolf blood: it killed regular vampires if they drank too much of it, and it could be used to exorcise minor demons. (According to Hernán, this was because lesser demons sensed Fenrir's essence in their blood and were thus frightened off the body they were possessing).

"He never got to be disappointed, because he never managed to obtain even a drop of your blood. He contacted your people, the handful whose identities he'd guessed over the centuries, but none reply. He promised to keep their secret in exchange for a sample of blood. He offered them rare ingredients and money, even the secret of the Stone. When that failed, he tried to appeal to their sense of compassion, to their humanity. He got nothing."

Mal considered asking her which of his cubs had been contacted by the famous alchemist, but that might lead to Estelle prying the names of the entire pack.

"He became frustrated, angry," Estelle went on. "He threatened to expose them. Pernelle urged him to stop. She was afraid that they – you – would kill Nicolas for his attempted blackmail."

"Was that a possibility?" Estelle eyed him questioningly. "Did he have any concrete proof of our existence? Could he really have exposed us?"

She hesitated, and her scent was pure confusion, which did nothing to appease him. "Adam… That is, Malkoran… He did expose you. He had photographs. That Russian lunatic? He was hardly trying to hide who he was. He appears at several political events, and he's easily recognisable, if you know who you're looking at."

For the first time in…in his entire life, in truth, Mal felt dizzy. Impossible. They would have told me. And Evangeline… She didn't know about us, before she was captured by Damian. It makes no sense.

"There was also that rabid werewolf who went on a killing spree in the trenches, during the Great War. Pernelle helped with the investigation – they assumed it was a demon, at first, given that the murders happened in broad daylight – and while the Aurors never closed the case, Pernelle and Nicolas deduced that it was the work of a Wolf. They'd seen it before. The Beast of Gévaudan, the Werewolf of Dole…"

All these murders were perpetrated by the same man, though the Werewolf of Dole – Gilles Garnier – had not yet been turned at the time. That particular string of murders had been the work of a demon.

"To them, this was confirmation of a theory they'd hatched centuries earlier: the existence of immortal werewolves. And why not? There are immortal vampires, after all. There must be balance between the two species."

"But…" But what? He'd only met Grigori once, but from what the others had told him, he was perfectly capable of breaking their rules on secrecy. And Estelle wasn't lying, that much he could tell. "No one in Great Britain knows about us. Evangeline said that all members of the Order of the Phoenix were baffled when she revealed our existence." Well, all except Albus Dumbledore, but Hannibal had assured Mal that their secret was safe with the old wizard. They'd worked together during World War II, though Mal didn't know the exact circumstances of that temporary partnership.

"Yes, well, photographs and hunches aren't proof enough, apparently… Their theory was debated, disputed, discredited, refuted. By pretty much everyone, in the end, since no Wolf ever came forward. After Nicolas claimed that their blood was a panacea, the common rabble wanted this miraculous cure to be made available to all, but their pleas were ignored. Nicolas exposed you, but you didn't respond in any way, so eventually the outcry died down. It was dismissed. Most people assumed that it was a hoax, or the fantasy of an eccentric, senile wizard in need of attention. There was a brief surge of indignation after Chernobyl, what with all the cancers that followed, but that was short-lived." She rolled her eyes. "It'll be on the news tomorrow, though, you can bloody well count on that. I hope that none of them got a picture of you."

"What's Chernobyl?"

Estelle raised an eyebrow. "The nuclear catastrophe in Ukraine? Have you been living in a cave these past twelve years?"

"Sort of," he mumbled.

"Anyway, people have mostly forgotten about it now, since Wolves have remained elusive so far, but Shadow Markets all over the world have been selling fake Wolf blood for three decades. The prices are ludicrously high, of course, and you'd think people would be smart enough to know that miraculous remedies don't magically appear precisely when they need it… But they aren't. Fake blood is a plague to the Aurors, just like powdered mammoth tusks. It's so easy to sell something that looks like it but isn't, you know?"

"I can't believe it." He couldn't believe that no one had told him about it, to be more accurate. Hannibal, Ramesses, William… Hernán. At least one of them had to know about this. To be fair, there had been a lot to catch up on when Mal had returned to Europe, but still, you'd think this was of the utmost importance. In fact, it would have warranted a message to Kunlun, Mal thought. They should have nipped it in the bud. It was too late now, obviously.

Their secret was out, and it had been out there for quite some time, too, even if people appeared to be dismissive of it. He would have to investigate the matter.

He could begin by asking Ramesses about it, tomorrow, after - if - they made it out of the Duat.