“Which they won’t,” Mirae said from the doorway.
None of us had heard her arrive.
She stepped inside, pale hair pinned back, coat neat. Her gaze skimmed the room, quick, cataloguing.
“Good,” she said. “Everyone important is still alive.”
“Mostly,” Nox said.
She ignored him.
“The city’s holding a council session tomorrow,” she went on. “Dressed it up like a public reassurance. Leaders, major council members, financial backers. Half the people who signed off on the program you’ve just disrupted will be in the same room.”
“Convenient,” Bishop said from the window.
“Dangerous,” Mirae corrected. “But yes. Convenient.”
“We’re going,” I said.
She nodded once. “Of course you are.” Mirae stepped closer to the table, resting her fingertips on the wood. “So, this is how it’s going to play out.”
The room quieted.
“The assembly hall is going to be secure, guarded by a number of soldiers on every entrance,” she said. “Tamsin, your pack will go in first. I’ll sneak you in through one of the loading docks. My people will make sure to keep the guards under control.”
“Fine by me,” I said.
“Zara, Sera,” Mirae continued, “you’ll bring your people in later. The wolves from Ireland will be coming with you.”
“Where do I stand?” Bishop asked.
“You’ll be our centerpiece,” she replied without hesitation. “You’ll speak to what happened to you, and you’ll do it in a way they can’t pretend not to understand.”
He inclined his head. “I can do that.”
“And the rest of us?” Elias asked.
“You make sure no one decides that the easiest way to deal with inconvenient truth is to start shooting. You don’t give them an excuse to say the wolves turned the event into a riot,” Mirae said simply.
“Alright,” I said. “Then that’s what we do.”
Zara met my eyes. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But we’re doing it anyway.”
Sera exhaled, the corner of her mouth tightening. “Good. I’d hate to have crossed half the world for nothing.”
There was a low ripple of tired amusement around the room.
When everyone quieted, I glanced at Sera’s bag. “And the serum?”
Sera nodded. “We’ve already dosed the ones we brought from Ireland. We weren’t going to drag them into London still feral.”
Then Sera crossed to Eamon and held out a stack of papers. “I copied what I could before we left. There was something in there about dosing and exposure.”
Eamon took the pages and skimmed them quickly. His eyes narrowed, then he straightened a little. “Wait. What about preventative use.”
Sera looked at him. “What do you mean?”
