“Just keep throwing all that back in my face."

Ed wrapped an arm around his sister's shoulders.

"Honestly, I kind of hope you don't go for Queen. Ever. You know that there are some shifters, especially in the reptile community, that think this would be a good time to challenge Reichert? They don't think the Council should be protecting him.”

“What? Why?"

“Because of Reichert's own philosophy. The strong survive. Some are saying he brought this on himself and, for better or for worse, he should either be strong enough to deal with it on his own. If not, then he should be fair game."

“Bullshit! This thing of Detrius's or Daryl's or whatever the hell his name is, it isn't a legitimate challenge. It would be like hiring someone to shoot a monarch, then challenging them. It's against the law."

"But it isn't, because no one asked Mosely to do this. No one asks a guy to get cancer that might weaken him, but he would still be available to be challenged. The reptiles around Reichert right now are all loyalists, but if someone comes forward with a real dominance challenge, then no one is sure what the Council would say."

“We need to stop him, Ed. Damn, I just want to go out and find that son of a bitch right now, but ——"

“But you're still not an official investigator," Ed reminded her.

“I hate to keep going back to that, but --"

Heda stood up, stuck her tongue out at her brother, then headed back inside. She hung out with her friends for a while, then headed up to her own room when Joanna pulled Edgar off into a dark area to do some things that no sister should ever watch her brother doing. Heda opened up her windows and then lay down on the bed, her nose in one of her favorite books, a breeze caressing her face and shoulders.

‘It's getting colder out there,’ she thought, absently considering closing the windows again. ‘Cold.’ She stood up and went to the window. ‘This guy is all about cold.' She sat in the window and stared out into the wilderness.

"He was the number one student, so he hunts number one students. He thinks that Reichert should die because Professor Hill died," she said out loud. Still staring out into the woods, something hit her consciousness.

She hurried downstairs and, making sure that Ed was still not around, she started leafing through the files that he had left in his briefcase. She wanted the obituary. She read over the black-and-white text several times, including the synopsis of the anonymous student.

"He died alone and in the cold,' she thought. ‘He went out into the woods behind his house and . . . shot . . . himself.’

"What'cha doing?"

Heda spun around to find Billy looking over her shoulder.

"How do you move that quietly?! It's fucking creepy."

"Sasha is a light sleeper," he said.

"So it's a skill acquired out of survival instinct."

“You wake her up, she kills you?"

“Amongst other things." He looked at the obituary.

"Think you're going to find something the official investigators missed?"

"It's probably nothing. My brain's all hyped up right now, so I figure that going through all this might help me feel like I'm doing something. You know, going back to the beginning —-"