Aidan is prone in his hunting blind the first time he sees her, twenty feet up in the branches of a...

Aidan is prone in his hunting blind the first time he sees her, twenty feet up in the branches of a poplar. It’s maybe an hour before dusk, and the sun is low in the trees behind him, making the early autumn leaves around him over in a blaze of reds and browns and yellows. She’s no more than fifty yards away, slipping like a shadow from trunk to trunk, passing through the underbrush without so much as disturbing a leaf. He settles his right eye against the scope of his rifle, places the crosshairs on a curl of white-blonde hair slipping out from beneath the knit cap at her temple. He hasn’t made a sound, he’s sure of it, but still she freezes, and her head turns just far enough then for her to meet his gaze. His finger slides from the guard to the trigger. Her eyes are a flat, empty blue. They narrow, and in that instant he realizes he’s been seen, and judged, and found wanting. He knows he should fire, knows she’s Altered. She has a grace to her movements and a silence in her stillness that are far beyond human. And yet…

A bead of sweat drips into his lashes. Aidan squints, then blinks. When he opens his eyes again, she’s gone.