He tapped the paper. “This. The compound doesn’t only seem to work after exposure. I think,” he said slowly, “that if the compound works the way it appears to, a prophylactic dose will blunt or block the feral reaction if someone tries anything… creative.”
I exhaled. “Then we don’t wait for them to be creative. We prepare.” I turned to Eamon. “Can you handle dosing everyone?”
He hesitated only a heartbeat. “Yes. It might not be pleasant for some of them. I’m not sure of the side effects, but it’s safer than the alternative.”
“Then we start now,” I said.
Griff rolled his shoulders. “You heard her. Line up, children.”
Nox grinned. “Why does it sound like we’re about to get scolded and vaccinated at the same time?”
“Because you are,” Eamon said dryly.
We cleared the table and turned the common room into a makeshift clinic. Coats came off. Sleeves were rolled up. Vials clinked softly as Eamon laid them out, hands steady despite the fatigue etched into his face. Bishop helped by prepping clean cloth and boiling water in a kettle over the hearth.
“Who’s first?” Eamon asked.
“I am,” I said, stepping forward and offering my arm.
He didn’t argue. He swabbed the inside of my forearm with a damp cloth, found the vein by touch, and slid the needle in at a shallow angle. The serum burned on the way in like heat spreading under my skin.
“Any dizziness?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Don’t be brave,” he said, in that tone that had no room for argument. “Tell me if you feel anything.”
I nodded.
He moved on to Elias next. Elias didn’t flinch. Griff grumbled but held still. Nox cracked a joke and then hissed quietly when the burn hit. Bishop watched his own injection with clinical detachment.
Zara’s wolves went next, then Sera’s. There were a few winces, but they all took their injections quietly and without much complaint. Eamon checked them over one by one. He asked questions about dizziness and nausea, listened to the answers, and when he got to the end of the line, he seemed satisfied.
When he finally straightened, his shoulders sagged. “Alright,” he said. “We should be covered.”
CHAPTER 28
Bishop
If London had a heart, this was where it pretended to keep it.
The assembly hall sat at the top of a broad flight of stone steps, all symmetrical lines and polished brass railings. Inside, the air was warm and faintly metallic, smelling of oil, old wood, and too many bodies doused in cologne. Lamps hung from the ceiling in tiers, glass globes fitted into wrought-iron frames, lit by steady cores connected to a ring of pipes along the walls. The whole thing ran on pressure and careful engineering, like everything else in the city.
You could hear it if you listened: a soft hiss and ticking behind the walls, the sigh of valves opening and closing somewhere out of sight. A civilized façade laid neatly over steam-powered machinery.
Tamsin and the others looked like they belonged here, whichprobably said something uncomfortable about how adaptable we’d all become.
Elias wore a dark suit cut to make him look like he’d stepped out of an old portrait, shirt collar unbuttoned just enough to keep him from feeling strangled. Griff looked like someone had squeezed a bear into formalwear; he tugged at his cuffs, glared at his sleeves, and somehow still carried himself like security. Nox wore his suit like he’d worn it all his life, which was surprising actually. Eamon had cleaned up better than any of us, his hair smoothed back, waistcoat buttoned, looking every inch the respectable physician.
Tamsin was the one every eye would land on if we let them.
She stood at the edge of the floor, near one of the marble columns, in a steel blue dress that looked tailor-made: simple, cut for function, but the way it hugged her body was… noticeable.
I slipped through the room like I’d never left this world.
My shoes clicked quietly against the polished wood as I crossed to the center of the room. I could feel the eyes on me before I heard the whispers.
“…Bishop Hale?”
