Chapter 27
They made a strange pair, the slender, white-winged man with ginger hair, sitting atop the massive gold-and-red lion. There were other oddities in the crowd this night, though. The moon was full, and all the city’s were-folk were trapped in their animal forms for the duration. Yet it was Winter Solstice, the night the city didn’t sleep, but kept celebratory vigil through the long dark until the first dawn heralded the turning of the light. Few would miss that. So though most of the thronging crowd were human or at least humanoid, a huge shaggy wolf trotted along here, and a horse that would tolerate no bridle walked there. There were even eagles and other, lesser birds amid the scattering of avians in the sky above.