She leaned forward slightly, voice lowering just a fraction. “Information is expensive. And you’re asking for the kind that gets people killed.”
I met her gaze steadily. “We’re already in that business.”
Her smile widened. “Exactly.”
She sat back and crossed one leg over the other, perfectly composed in her makeshift throne.
“I’ll help you,” she said. “But you’ll owe me something when this is over.”
The words were soft, almost polite, but the meaning underneath them was blatantly obvious.
Mirae didn’t trade in money the way normal people did.
She traded in leverage.
In secrets.
In favors that came due when you least wanted to pay them.
And if she was offering us the keys to London’s locked doors, then whatever she wanted in return was going to matter.
A lot.
I held her gaze and nodded once.
“Fine.”
Mirae’s eyes glittered. “Good.”
Then she leaned back, already moving on, already treating our debt like a quiet certainty.
“Now,” she said, “let’s talk about how you plan to walk into London without getting yourself killed.”
CHAPTER 22
Tamsin
Mirae was silent for a moment. The fire behind her popped softly, illuminating the fine lines at the corners of her eyes, and the careful way she held herself like someone who had learned long ago that power didn’t need to announce itself.
She rose from her chair and crossed the room, her steps unhurried, skirts whispering against the floor. She stopped by a side table and poured herself a cup of tea from a dented kettle.
She returned to her seat and folded her hands. “The way into London won’t be easy.”
I leaned forward. “Explain.”
“You’re going to arrive as what London expects,” she said. “Laborers. Cleaners. Dockhands. Displaced families. Traderswith just enough paperwork to look plausible but not enough to look important.”
Eamon frowned slightly. “That many false identities?—”
“Are already prepared,” Mirae said calmly. “People come and go constantly. The trick isn’t forging a perfect identity. It’s being forgettable.”
Bishop’s gaze homed in on her. “But we’re wolves.”
She tilted her head. “You’ll stay hidden in plain sight. There are neighborhoods where no one asks questions of anyone as long as you don’t draw attention to yourselves. They live in the old districts. Flooded basements. Buildings officially condemned but still lived in.”
“What about the lab?” I asked. “The one where they’re manufacturing the feral wolf drug?”
“It’s been moved,” she said. “Not far, but far enough.”
