Gideon takes his seat.
The session closes without resolution. Which is, I recognize as I watch Gideon settle back into his chair with careful composure, precisely what he wanted. Not a loss, a delay. A repositioning.
I watch him leave the chamber first, unhurried, already speaking quietly to Webb near the door.
Ciaran catchesme in the east corridor before I've reached the training ground.
"Walk with me," he says.
We move toward the tree line rather than back inside, into the cold morning air and the relative privacy of open ground. When the compound noise drops behind us, Ciaran reaches into his jacket and produces a folded set of patrol sheet three weeks of route assignments, dating back to before the first livestock kill.
"I pulled the shift archives last night," he says. "Cross-referenced them against every confirmed rogue movement we have, and with Cassidy’s data." He opens the sheets and holds them out. The patrol gaps are marked in blue ink, the rogue's known corridors in red.
I study the marks without speaking.
"There’s an authorization seal on every single change." Ciaran holds my gaze when I look up. "Gideon signed every one of them."
The morning air feels colder than it did a minute ago. I look back at the patrol sheets, at the neat, systematic pattern of it, weeks of careful preparation, gaps opened one at a time in a way that would look like routine administrative shuffling to anyone who wasn't looking for it. The rogue didn't find these corridors by chance. He walked through doors that were opened for him.
"How far back does it go?" I ask.
"The earliest altered route I found is nine weeks ago." Ciaran pauses. "Before the first human kill."
I fold the sheets and hold onto them. "Who else has seen this?"
"No one."
"Keep it that way." I look toward the tree line for a moment, working through the shape of it. The cold thing in my chest that started during the council session settles into something sharper and more deliberate. "No confrontation. Nothing that signals we've connected the pattern. I want the full picture before we move. Who knew, who helped, and what he's been doing with those open corridors beyond letting the rogue through." I turn back to Ciaran. "A quiet investigation."
Ciaran nods slowly. "You think he's coordinating with the rogue directly?"
"I think he opened doors for weeks and watched what came through them." I hand the patrol sheets back to him. "I want to know why. Destabilizing my leadership is reason enough to damage the pack politically, but this goes further. Livestock killed, humans dead, hunters drawing closer to our borders." I hold his eyes. "Someone is steering this toward a specific outcome, and I want to know what that outcome looks like before it arrives."
"Understood." Ciaran tucks the sheets away. "I'll start pulling correspondence logs and cross-referencing council approval records. If there's more, I'll find it."
He heads back toward the mansion. I stay at the tree line a moment longer, watching the pines move in the early wind.
Gideon began this before I ever knew Cassidy Ellis existed.
The reports comein through the afternoon in pieces.
Two deer carcasses, killed and left within forty yards of the county highway on the southern border. Positioned, not dragged bodies oriented toward the road with the deliberate staging I've come to recognize as the rogue's signature.
A driver already filmed one before patrol could respond, and within two hours Ciaran confirmed the footage was spreading across local news feeds and social media accounts from three counties over.
By midday the calls started coming into the Briar Ridge sheriff's station. By late afternoon, trucks with out-of-county plates had begun appearing at the lower forest trailheads, rifle cases visible through rear windows, orange vests, trail cameras in hand. Men who'd watched a video on their phones and decided proximity to something dangerous was preferable to sitting at home.
I stand at the war room window and watch the treeline.
"Six vehicles confirmed at the southern access," Ciaran says from the doorway behind me. "Two more at the old logging road. They're staying outside the marked boundary for now, but they're moving closer each time patrol checks."
"Shadow them." I don't turn from the window. "Two-person teams, human form, full distance. No engagement unless they cross the boundary line with weapons raised." I pause. "Keep the younger wolves off this rotation. Anyone still learning to hold their shift under pressure stays inside the mansion perimeter."
"Done." Ciaran hesitates. "Gideon's been talking to the patrol leads."
"Saying what?"
"That you're letting a threat sit on our doorstep. That the hunters could solve the rogue problem faster than we can." He lets that land. "A few of the younger enforcers are listening."
