The walk to the main altar took me through the passage of cinders, a corridor lined with flame that burned but never consumed. It was an old trick, a glamour to remind the uninitiated what it felt like to walk through hell. I passed beneath a dozen archways, each lower than the last, so that by the time I reached the ritual chamber I was hunched, neck aching, eager to stand tall again. It was a clever bit of theater, and I respected it even as I despised the need for it.
High Flame Caller Shasta Tierney was waiting for me, backlit by the halo of her namesake: a ring of fire that circled the raised dais at the center of the chamber. She wore the ceremonial reds, her hair plaited tight against her skull, her face painted with vertical lines of soot and gold. She didn’t rise as I entered, but her eyes tracked me, bright and blue as a gas leak.
I bowed, deep enough to be seen but not enough to lose sight of her hands. “My lady Tierney,” I said, my voice carrying in the vast stone space. “Thank you for seeing me on short notice.”
She smiled with half her mouth. “You bring the wind of scandal with you, King Calloway. How could I refuse?”
I circled the fire, careful to stay just outside the line of salt that ringed the dais. Tradition said a wolf who crossed it without permission would never shift again; I had no intention of testing the myth tonight. Shasta’s hands rested on her knees, fingers working the fabric of her robe in a tiny, perpetual nervous twitch.
I gave her the opening she wanted. “The Council moves fast when it wishes to remind us of its reach. I’d rather not see my family’s troubles aired in public, but the Goddess’s will is not mine to interpret.”
Shasta exhaled, a plume of steam in the cold. “It is the will of the Goddess that brings you here. But it is the will of men that brings shame.” She inclined her head. “Your daughter’s mate bond is the talk of every coven from here to the Eastern Sea.”
“Savannah’s actions were… unanticipated.” The understatement tasted bitter. “But we both know it’s not the bond that concerns the Council. It’s the precedent. If wolves can break centuries of tradition at the whim of a girl, what next? Vampires refusing blood oaths? Witches abandoning their covens?” I leaned in, let the heat of the fire paint my face orange. “What happens when a High Flame Caller chooses her own path? Does the world survive that, Shasta?”
She flinched, barely. But it was enough. I watched the gears turn in her mind: the stories of her own line, the cousin who’d defected to the Midwestern vamps, the mutiny that cost her mother her position. Shasta prided herself on being unbreakable, but she understood how quickly tradition became memory, and memory became rot.
“The world survives,” she said, “but it is changed. Not always for the better.”
“Then we agree,” I said, soft as a confessional. “The old ways are not perfect, but they keep us from the abyss. If the Council breaks faith, it breaks everything.”
She shifted, robes whispering against the stone. “You came for my vote.”
I nodded. “You already know I need five. The rest can be bought or bullied. But yours is worth more than gold. Your word on this will turn the room.”
She studied me for a long moment, blue eyes unreadable in the glow. “You are not like your daughter. You know how to ask for things.”
“She used to be like me,” I said, and let the lie stand.
Shasta pressed her lips together. “You were always a better liar than a wolf.”
“I’m whatever you need me to be.” I smiled, showing teeth. “That’s the whole point.”
A long silence, broken only by the sizzle of sap in the flames. Shasta watched the fire as if waiting for a sign, but I knew the real work was already done. Fear of disorder was the mortar that held the whole edifice together.
“If I cast my vote,” she said, “I’ll expect something in return.”
I let the question hang. She wanted me to ask, so I didn’t. She filled the silence herself. “There are elements in the Western Territories who want to see the covens split. Otero is making promises he cannot keep. If the Eastern Wolves remain united, so do we.”
I nodded. “You’ll have your alliance.”
She smiled, small and sharp. “You’ll have your vote.”
We stood at the same time. Shasta stepped down from the dais, the hem of her robe hissing through the salt. She offered me her hand—bare, ungloved, the sign of trust. I took it, squeezed once, and felt the delicate bones beneath her skin.
The deal was done.
Back in the corridor, I let the cold burn off the scent of fire. The first vote was always the hardest; the rest would fall like dominos. I walked the archways with my head high, let the blue flames lick at my shadow, and didn’t look back.
The world could go to hell, as long as I got there first.
The sun never rose in Gloamreach. It hovered behind a perpetual veil of clouds, turning the twisted black trees into silhouettes and the ground into a grave of moss and rot. Even the air here was a conspiracy—wet, dense, so thick with spores and secrets you could taste them on your tongue. The witches who ruled thesewoods liked it that way. They believed in darkness the way some people believed in currency or God.
The entrance was marked by a pair of dead wolves, strung up in the branches and draped with ribbons of sinew. A warning, or maybe a welcome. I passed beneath them, head high, and followed the path of broken stone into the heart of the enclave. No one challenged me, but I could feel eyes behind every tree, every knot of fungus. The Gloamreach witches weren’t known for hospitality, especially not for men, especially not for wolves. But the Mistress of Shadows had invited me, and that meant she wanted something.
Her chamber was a nest of woven branches, the walls thick enough to blot out even the suggestion of day. It reeked of mushrooms and burnt cloves, the kind of scent that clings to your clothes long after you’ve left. The Mistress herself sat in a high-backed chair, a quilt of black feathers draped over her shoulders. Her hair was a riot of curls, half hiding her face, which was pale and sharp as a knife. One eye was painted with kohl, the other bare, and the asymmetry made her look always on the verge of laughter or violence.
“King Calloway,” she said, voice so smooth I nearly missed the threat in it. “How rare to see you outside your concrete kingdom.”
