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Mia sees it too. Her face goes slack.

“If you can find a hex witch, maybe you can use it to locate her,” I say quietly.

Mia looks at Echo. “Good boy,” she says, voice rough.

Echo places the cloth on Violet’s chest like evidence and gives us both a look that clearly says we’re welcome.

Then he curls into Violet’s side like he’s chosen her as his newest treasure.

Mia turns and looks at me—really looks, no armor, no strategy—and I see all of it move through her eyes at once. Grief and relief and fury and something else underneath all of those that she’s not ready to put words to yet.

“Thank you,” I say quietly. “For reaching me when nothing else could.”

She holds my gaze for one more second.

Then she nods, and we both look up as the first wolves start returning through the eastern gate—confused, disoriented, the compulsion breaking apart at last.

Dutch is first through. He takes one look at us. Then at Ramsey dead at our feet. Then back at us.

“What the hell did we miss?” he says.

Mia looks at me.

For the first time in weeks, something almost like a smile crosses her face.

“Some of my best work,” she says smugly, and he has the decency to look at her with open admiration as he realizes she’s the one who finished this chapter for them at last. As it always should have been.

22

MIA

The debrief runs three hours.

Grey has me walk everyone through it twice—what happened with Ramsey, what we know about Davina, the compulsion gas. Then Grey and Lexi tell us about being chased. How Crow caught Lexi and drew blood. Just once, but it nearly came to a fight between him and Grey.

Crow sits with his arms on the table and his hands folded and says almost nothing, and I let him because I know that particular silence. He’s going to blame himself for what he did to Lexi for a long time, no matter what any of us says about it.

Andy takes meticulous notes even though Dutch’s arm is firmly wound around her shoulders the entire time. Razor breaks two pens then demands snacks. Lexi apologizes four times for Violet’s betrayal, at least two of them with accompanying tears.

Violet is upstairs under guard and under sedation. According to Marcus, her injuries are still unknown from whatever Davina did to her. Echo refused to leave her side, which I tried not to take personally. Lexi keeps saying betrayal like that’s the only word for it, but none of us is pretending Ramsey didn’t put a blade to the softest part of her heart and call it a choice.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m pissed at what she did to expose us. But Ramsey is the real villain here. Not a naïve human girl who only wanted to protect her best friend.

I give my account when asked and answer questions when they come, and at some point, someone puts a plate of food in front of me that I eat without tasting.

Nash is three seats down. He practically stares at me the entire time while I’m way too nervous to even glance his way. But even without eye contact, I know exactly where he is in the room at every moment, the way you know where a door is even in a dark room.

The bond does that, apparently.

I’m still getting used to it.

More than once, I feel him brush at the edges of my mind, but I don’t reach out. Not like I did outside with Ramsey. I’m not sure I’m ready for that again.

After we eat, the meeting devolves into something more casual. Something that almost resembles family dinner. The debrief is no longer tactical and becomes more like, “Holy shit, did you see what Mia did to Ramsey? Totally fucked him up.”

That, from Dutch and Razor. They try to high five me.

“Fuck off,” I tell them, and they just grin and high five each other.