“They are inducing ferality,” Bishop finished.
Jamie exhaled slowly. “So, the feral thing doesn’t just happen naturally in some of us then.”
“No,” Bishop replied.
Sera’s voice cut through the room. “London tells everyone that it’s inevitable.”
Bishop nodded once. “That they do.”
Sera swallowed. “If they can make wolves go feral on command… they can keep humans scared forever.”
Magnus rubbed a hand over his mouth. “Then we agree that the problem isn’t the ferals. The problem is the ones that are responsible for creating the ferals.”
Eamon finally spoke, voice calm, thoughtful. “Yes. They can create proof on demand.”
Tamsin sat back, eyes flicking around the room again. “So here’s where we are. We can’t stay here. We can’t fight London head-on either.”
Killian cracked his knuckles. “I hate when you say sensible things.”
Zara gave him a look.
“London’s advantage is distance and numbers.” This came from Elias.
“What if we go to them?” Declan mused.
Elias shook his head once. “Not with an army. We don’t have the manpower. And if we try to storm London, we’ll die before we even step foot in the city.”
Tobias grunted. “Agreed.”
Tamsin nodded. “We just need to do it smart.”
She reached for the map someone had dragged in, a rough, hand-drawn thing with the coastline and old road names scribbled in. She pressed it onto the table and flattened it with her palm.
“We take boats,” she said. “Not one. Several. Spread out. Land far away from London so that they’re unaware that we’ve arrived.”
“Where?” Logan asked.
Tamsin tapped a spot east of the city. “Here. Not close enough to be obvious, but not so far away that we waste weeks traveling on foot. We land quietly. We move inland quickly.”
Magnus leaned over the table, studying. “That’s still a long walk.”
“Yes,” Tamsin said. “And that’s the point. We don’t march down main roads. We don’t announce ourselves. We move through people.”
Sera’s eyes narrowed. “People will report us.”
“Some might,” Tamsin agreed. “My network won’t.”
Eamon lifted his chin slightly. “There are wolf sympathizers out there. Not many, but enough of them. There are plenty of people who’ve lost someone to London’s feral wolf policies. Doctors. Dockworkers. Clerks. Smugglers.”
Thorne tapped the map with one finger. “And the end goal is what? Destroy the feral drug?”
“First, we stop its production,” Tamsin began. “Then we decimate their stocks. Expose it if we can.”
Sera’s voice was tight. “If the public learns London has been inducing ferality…”
Eamon’s expression was thoughtful. “We could manufacture targeted leaks, be it in newspaper form, with witness accounts, true stories, whatever we can think of. That could fracture the people’s trust in the city.”
Logan nodded slowly. “We don’t need everyone. We just need enough.”
