"I have heard that there is a tower somewhere inside them, and that there I may be healed. Or perhaps you would know?"

"I know a story about the tower," I say to him, smiling sweetly. "Once upon a time there was a little girl who was born in a great tower. She spent all her days there, high in a stone room. Her mama said it was safer for her to stay there than to go out, but she was so hungry, and the world looked so sweet. She persuaded her mama to let her walk to her grandmother's house in the woods. On the way she met a wolf, and the wolf thought she was a silly little girl, so he followed her to her grandmother's house. But the girl was crafty, and she knew the wolf was bad. So she ate her grandmother to make her strong and wise, and she waited for him. The wolf saw the blood on her mouth and begged her not to chew him up, so she swallowed him whole, and there he still lives, inside her skin."

I pull back the hood of my cloak, and it pulls back skin and hair with it, little girl body peeling open, and now I am a great wolf. I bare my teeth.

"I'm still hungry," I say, little girl voice from my great mouth.