One guard swallowed and lowered his gun. The others followed, one by one, like that was all they’d been waiting for.
“Nox,” I called.
He was already at one of the side exits. Always prepared, that one. I appreciated that about him.
“Keep people from trampling each other,” I said.
“On it,” he said, turning to the jam of bodies. “You heard the man. Slow it down. No one here is interesting enough to die in a pile with.”
Mirae appeared near one of the side doors, as composed as if she’d stepped out of a meeting instead of into a slaughterhouse. Her eyes skimmed the scene—Ashcroft dead, Dane along with him—and her posture relaxed just the slightest bit.
“Well,” she said quietly as she reached us. “That escalated quickly.”
“Your timing’s impeccable,” Nox called from the exit.
Her mouth twitched. “And yet, here we all are. Alive.”
She stepped carefully around a broken glass and looked down at Ashcroft’s body. “You did that?” she asked Tamsin.
Tamsin’s jaw tightened. “Yes.”
“Good work,” Mirae said simply.
Within the hour, we had all found fresh sets of clothes, covered the bodies, and herded the shaken attendees into smaller rooms to be questioned and accounted for.
By the time we left the hall, the floor was still stained, the air still ripe with blood, but the chaos had calmed.
Tamsin walked beside me, quiet. I let my hand rest between her shoulders as we stepped back into the cooler corridor beyond.
“You did well,” I said.
She snorted softly. “You did too.”
Two days later, I stood against the back wall of a smaller chamber and listened to Bishop tell the story again.
This room wasn’t made for show. It had plain walls, a long table, and rows of benches instead of gilded railings. The lamps were functional, not decorative. The air smelled like ink, old coffee, and nervous sweat.
At the head of the table sat a cluster of councilors, a few high-ranking officials, and two representatives of whatever passed for the new security committee. Mirae sat off to the side, legs crossed, expression politely blank. Tamsin was beside me, arms folded, face unreadable. Eamon sat near the front with a leather folder in front of him, as if this were any other medical briefing.
Bishop stood alone.
“…I followed Dr. Voss into the lower facility,” he was saying, voice calm and true. “I saw the wolves held down there. I saw them being drugged. I saw Ashcroft order a feral wolf released into the room with me. I was bitten. I was sedated. I woke up in Ireland.”
His father sat among the councilors, looking like he’d aged another ten years in two days.
One of the officials cleared her throat. “You understand these are serious accusations.”
Bishop’s mouth quirked, humorless. “Yes. That’s why I’m making them.”
“And you’re certain about Ashcroft’s role?”
“I watched him give the order,” Bishop said. “I watched him watch it happen.”
I could feel the ripple of discomfort move around the table.
“And the serum?” another asked, turning to Eamon. “You’re satisfied it works as described?”
“Yes,” Eamon said. “It stabilizes wolves forced into ferality by the stimulant. When given beforehand, it blunts or prevents that effect entirely. We tested it on our own people before this assembly. You saw the results.”
