"Tell them I'm just getting started."
He leaves without another word.
I watch him pass through the doors, the cold blast of dock air sucking the memory of his presence from the room.
Fiachra says, "What now?"
I look at the big whiteboard, the block letters that spell out our next four moves in blue dry-erase.
"Now, we get ready for the larger war."
He nods, already dialing the first of the crews.
"You want them scared, or dead?"
I think of Keira, the scars at her wrists and the strange, cold clarity she wore in the days after the abduction.
I say, "Both."
That night, I drive home alone.
The road is steeped in mist, and the lane to the estate is lined with the silhouettes of dormant trees, black and stiff as sentries.
The house at the top of the rise is surprisingly serene, windows glowing gold against the blue-black of the night.
I park at the rear, out of habit, and let myself in through the service corridor.
Keira waits in the war room.
She sits at the big table, surrounded by maps and pinboards, her hair pulled back in a rough knot and a pencil tucked behind her ear.
She looks up and there is a softness in her gaze, a deep kind of empathy that makes my throat run dry.
"How was the meeting?" she asks, eyes on the city grid.
I pour two fingers of whiskey and slide the glass to her.
"Pointless," I say.
"They sent a messenger with a dead man's proposal."
She smiles, faint and private.
"They're getting desperate."
I drop into the chair across from her.
"They want us to make a mistake. To overreach. And if we do that, they will catch us at our weakest and kill us anyway."
Her eyes glint.
"You won't make a mistake."
I lift the glass.
"To overreach," I say, and she laughs, a sound as bright as a breaking bone.
We sit, side by side, and watch the city shrink to symbols and lines, each boundary redrawn in the silence that follows.
