Bigby paused under a flickering streetlamp, scanning the empty alley. The kind of place no one went unless they had business too dirty for daylight. The smell of wet garbage and mildew invaded his senses, a reminder that his own senses were sharper than most. The Wolf, they used to call him. A title that hung on his shoulders like a shroud, like he was some relic everyone feared but refused to put down.

Figures they’d call me to this side of town, he thought bitterly, lighting a cigarette and exhaling a plume of smoke that curled up to meet the rain. No one else has the guts to take a midnight stroll here. Just Bigby and his demons.

The case was simple, at least on the surface: a missing person, one of the minor Fables, a girl who’d worked at one of Georgie’s clubs. Last seen two nights ago, leaving work early, with no witnesses, no sign of a struggle—nothing but a smear of cheap lipstick on a broken compact, like a parting gift to the sidewalk.

He reached into his pocket and pulled out the compact, the gold hinge now rusted from exposure. It was the only clue he had, and it wasn’t worth a damn thing. He turned it over in his hand, watching the rain slide over it, wondering if maybe—just maybe—it held something he’d missed. He caught his reflection in its cracked mirror, and for a second, he saw the wolf’s eyes staring back, amber and cold.