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Outside the conference room, the noise is chaotic. Elena already has maintenance ripping apart the ventilation system and bagging every filter for proper disposal.

“And Davina?” Andy presses. “What’s our statement about her?”

“We followed her scent trail to the edge of town where it abruptly vanished,” Dutch says. “Likely had a car waiting.”

“Or used the blade to cover her tracks,” Grey says.

“Can it do that?” Andy asks.

“That blade, in the hands of a hex witch, can do a lot more than I want to think about,” he says.

“We’ll need to get it back,” Dutch says.

The silence that follows is evidence of how fucking tired everyone is.

“We’ll think about that once everyone is recovered,” Lexi says, and no one argues.

“We still need to find a hex witch who can help us with the wards,” Grey says. “That’ll be first on our agenda after we’ve all had some rest.”

“What about Ramsey’s pack?” Razor asks.

“I took the liberty of sending my pack to round them up,” Nash says. “Marcus and Donahue are still sorting through them—who ran, who surrendered, who claims they never had a choice.”

“Thanks,” Razor tells him. “For everything you’ve done for us. We won’t forget it.”

By the time Grey calls it and people start moving toward the door, it’s late enough that the city outside the windows has gone quiet. My left shoulder has been wrapped by the pack doctor—soft tissue damage—and the painkiller she gave me has taken the worst edge off without making me useless.

Nash touches my elbow as I pass him in the doorway.

Just that. Two fingers, brief. A silent question.

I stop but say nothing.

“Later?” he asks. Quiet.

“Later,” I agree.

My apartment smells familiar when I get home—traces of coffee and the cedar and sandalwood candle I’ve been burning down to the last inch on the kitchen counter. I stand in the kitchen for a moment and let the sense of home settle over me.

Then I shower, change into the oldest clothes I own, and pour a glass of wine I’m not sure I’ll drink. I stand barefoot in my kitchen and look out at the city; the glass towers catching the sunset, the river threading through downtown in its slow, indifferent curve, the mountains dark and solid at the far edge of everything. Indigo Hills. Still standing. Still mine.

I saved it.

We saved it—Nash and me and all of us—and somewhere in the mess of today, I haven’t had a single second to feel the victory of that.

I love this city.

I’ve always loved it in the way you love something you’ve had to fight to keep—not peacefully, not easily, but with the full knowledge of what it costs. The Claires working in diners. The teachers buying supplies with their own money. The corner bodegas that go back four generations. I fought for all of it, and tonight it’s still there, and so am I, and that should feel like enough.

It does.

It also feels, if I’m honest, like a lot.

I’ve been running at full speed for so long I’m not sure I remember what it’s like to just stop. To put down the weight of it. To let somebody else carry it while I catch my breath. Indigo Hills has taken everything I had for years, and I gave it willingly, and I’d do it again, and I’m also standing here in my kitchen at dinnertime with a wrapped shoulder and a bond humming quietly in my tired chest.

I grab my glass plus another and cross to the couch and sit, exhaling heavily before sipping my wine and setting it aside.

Echo materializes from somewhere around the bookshelf and lands on the cushion beside me. He’s carrying something—a gold ring, princess-cut diamond, no idea whose. He deposits it on the cushion between us with great ceremony, then tucks himself against my thigh.