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He just stares at me, unconvinced, before hurrying away.

I turn back toward The Pharmacy and force myself to just breathe. I have time. The Null is still wearing off gradually. I’m not unraveling. I’m just… louder than usual. I can manage loud.

My wolf makes a sound that is not agreement.

The window displays are full of gauze bandages and turmeric supplements, which have always struck me as the most aggressively generic cover for a black-market hex supplier in the history of bad decisions. The kind of cover-up that screams nothing interesting happens here so loudly that anyone paying attention knows immediately that interesting things do, in fact, happen here. I have no idea how it hasn’t been found out already, but that’s in my favor, I guess.

The door is open.

Not unlocked. Open.

Shit. Spoke too soon.

My hand goes to the knife at my hip before my brain has finished processing the possibilities. The wolf in me is already reading the air—copper and chemical and something underneath both of those that I don’t want to name yet because naming it changes what the next ten minutes look like.

I push the door open with two fingers and step inside.

The shop is destroyed.

Not ransacked—ransacked implies someone looking for something specific and willing to make a mess to find it. This is different. This is methodical. Every shelf cleared. Every container opened and emptied or smashed where it stood. The glass cases along the back wall shattered inward. Drawers pulled out and upended.

Slowly, I make my way toward the counter at the back. Broken glass crunches under my feet, and I know the small bit of hope I’m harboring that I’ll find a bottle of Null intact is naïve and useless. There’s not a vial or container in this place that hasn’t been taken or destroyed.

I stop in front of the old cash register, scanning for some clue about where I can find what I need. But whatever records existed—files, ledgers, anything electronic like a tablet or laptop—gone. And behind the counter, half hidden by the fallen shelving unit, is what I dreaded I’d find before I walked through the door.

According to my sources, the wolf who ran this shop was named Petyr. He was sixty-three, non-violent, and had been quietly supplying hex materials to anyone who could pay and keep their mouth shut for the better part of fifteen years. He was not a hex witch himself. He was just a middleman with good contacts and better discretion. Mostly, he sold love potions (which weren’t actually real) and healing salves. And the occasional Null if you knew how to ask.

He didn’t deserve this.

I crouch beside him and check for a pulse I already know isn’t there, and then I stand back up and look at the destruction around me and breathe through the cold fury that comes from seeing someone killed for the crime of being useful to the wrong person.

Or the right person, depending on how you looked at it.

Ramsey didn’t just steal my Null. He cut off the supply.

“Well,” says a familiar voice from the doorway behind me. “This is not great.”

I whirl, panic leaving me breathless. “Crow.”

“Mia.” His boots crunch over broken glass until he stops in the middle of the room. “I’m going to need you to explain what you’re doing here.”

I cross my arms. “I’m going to need you to explain the same thing."

“I asked first.”

“I got here first.”

He pins me with a look that says I’m not getting out of this. “Yeah, that’s my second question. How the hell did you manage that?”

I smirk. “Guess my instincts are still better than yours.”

He shakes his head and comes further into the shop, stepping over debris. He crouches beside Petyr the way I did, respectful, thorough, not touching anything he doesn’t need to. Then he stands and looks at me.

“Any leads on who might have done this?” he asks.

“I’ll give you one guess.”

He straightens, eyeing me shrewdly. “You’re thinking Ramsey. How do you know?”