I took another sip of water to hide the tightening of my jaw.
“So, we proceed?” Collins asked.
“Yes,” Ashcroft said. “Carefully. Quietly.”
“Of course,” Renshaw agreed. “The narrative is already in place. Wolves go feral. They always have.”
“And always will,” Ashcroft replied smoothly.
The conversation shifted then, drifting toward logistics and timelines, and I stepped away before I could be noticed. My heart was beating too fast, my thoughts racing in a way that made it hard to maintain the mask I’d worn my entire life.
They were drugging wolves.
They wereinducingthe feral behavior.
I had known, abstractly, that London manipulated information. That policies were shaped as much by fear as by fact. But this… this was something else. This was manufacturing a monster in order to justify its destruction.
I found my father again near the balcony, deep in discussion with another minister. He paused when he saw my expression.
“You look pale,” he observed. “Are you unwell?”
“No,” I said. “Just… a bit warm.”
He nodded absently. “You’ll grow used to it. Have a glass of wine. You’ll feel better.”
After what I’d heard, I sincerely doubted that.
Later that night, I followed Dr. Helena Voss.
She left the gala through a side corridor, heels clicking softly against marble, a dark gray tailored overcoat hiding her white lab coat. I waited long enough for the string quartet to swell, for laughter to rise and fall, for my father’s voice to disappear into the hum of conversation once more.
Then I went after her.
The conservatory’s service wing smelled of polish and ozone. I kept to the shadows, keeping my posture relaxed and my expression bored, showcasing the practiced ease of a minister’s son who had grown up knowing which doors were important and which ones weren’t.
She headed into the underground, turning a corner and descending one of the old escalators that had stopped working ages ago.
I moved quietly, following the echo of her heels through the old subway tunnels.
The first holding room stopped me cold. I stepped inside, stunned by what I was seeing.
Wolves lay restrained on steel platforms, bodies strapped down with iron shackles. Masks covered their muzzles, tubing snaking back to canisters that pulsed faintly, releasing a thin, colorless mist. Their eyes were wild, some glassy, some furious, some pleading. A few had already begun to convulse, muscles jumping beneath skin as the stimulant did its work.
I edged closer, heart hammering, and focused on the details: the rate at which the mist flowed; the way pupils dilated in sync; the tremor that preceded the first, fractured howl. I memorized it all. The labels on the canisters. The serial numbers etched into the restraints. The notation scrawledon a clipboard, ‘Behavioral escalation achieved within 3–5 minutes.’
A door slid open behind me.
I turned, expecting guards.
Marcus Ashcroft stood there instead.
He looked exactly as he had beneath the glass dome: impeccable, composed, his silver hair neat, his pin understated. The only difference was the absence of pretense.
My mouth was dry. “This is wrong.”
He smiled, small and indulgent. “I think you’re forgetting who you’re talking to, Mr. Hale. My word is the law in this city now.”
Two handlers flanked him. They were wearing matte-black gear, faces blank, eyes trained on me.
