登入*Amber* Thorn comes back at dusk with a royal seal in his coat and dried blood at his cuff. For one second nobody moves. Then the whole school seems to breathe at once. Boots scrape. Someone starts crying in the hall. Adion lets out a shriek of pure joy and runs so hard he nearly slips on the boards. Adis catches him under the arms and swings him up, and I go straight for my brother. He smells like rail smoke, old stone, and the sharp copper trace of violence. I hold him anyway. "You're late," I say into his shoulder, because if I say anything else I will start shaking. "I had court business." I lean back enough to look at him. "You look terrible." He gives me a tired, crooked smile. "You too." Teyla reaches us a breath later, both hands to his face, searching for wounds before she kisses him hard enough to make the room look away. Good. Let them look away. Let there be one thing in this city that belongs to love and not survival. Tjeck comes in last, limping, jaw bruised bl
*Thorn*The Capitol always smells cleaner than any place with this much rot should. Polished stone. Waxed floors. Perfume over old fear. Tjeck walks half a step behind me through the palace intake hall, dressed in a borrowed dark coat. He keeps his mouth loose, careless, like this is a game he might still joke his way through. I know better. His hands are too still. At the end of the hall, the king's chamberlain blocks our path with a bow too shallow to count. "His Majesty will receive Mayor Thorn alone." Tjeck snorts. "That's welcoming." I touch the signet at my finger. For one sharp second I see my car burning again, heat punching the air, the mayor dying in my place while I stood there alive and useless. The metal feels hot against my skin now, same as it did that night. "He's with me," I say. The chamberlain's smile hardens. "By order of the court, no undercity witnesses are admitted to the royal hearing." Before I can answer, Tjeck leans in, voice light. "Funny. Christop
*Amber* Jeremy lives through the afternoon, which is not the same thing as being safe. I learn the difference by the color of his lips, by the way the old medic keeps checking the dressing at his side, by how every few minutes someone opens the infirmary door and asks for news in a voice already braced for the worst. I answer them all. I boil water, count bandages, send food to the council room, check the window latches twice. Three times. Adis catches my wrist on the third pass. "Amber." "I'm busy." "You're shaking." I pull my hand back. "Of course I am." He is sitting on the narrow cot by the wall, elbows on his knees, dark roots showing through his damp white hair. Someone cleaned the blood off him. He still looks like a man pulled out of wreckage and set upright by force. I fetch a clean cup from the shelf because I need my hands doing something. Metal, not porcelain. The old habit rises anyway. My thumb taps the rim once, twice, three times. Adis watches it. "What is
ThornBy the time they bring Jeremy into the school infirmary, half the city already has three different versions of the mayor's death and all of them end with me either running, hiding, or preparing to sell Catrista to the Capitol.I stand over the narrow bed while Amber and the old undercity medic from the boiler district work on Jeremy under yellow lamp light. The room smells of boiled linen, iron, and the antiseptic sting that makes Adis go pale and silent in the doorway. Jeremy is breathing. Barely, but he is breathing.That is enough for now.Tjeck puts the ledger in my hand."Read the marked pages first."I do.Ela's runners. Capitol routes. Payments moved through shell accounts with Christopher's crest hidden in the coding. Clay's clinic stock. Batch numbers. Dosage notes. Obedience, confusion, compliance. Wolves turned into manageable things.My jaw locks so hard it hurts.Adis speaks from near the door, voice low. "It's real."I look up. He is standing rigid, one hand worryi
*Adis*"What the hell happened here?"The voice comes from the loading door, sharp and breathless. I know it before I can turn my head. Tjeck. My muscles are finally starting to unlock, but only in cruel little bursts. Fingers first. Jaw. A twitch in my thigh that goes nowhere. I lie on cold concrete with Ela's blood crawling toward my boot and Jeremy half-collapsed beside me, one hand clamped over his side. He is trying not to make noise. That is how bad it is. "Trap," I get out. My tongue feels thick. "Two runners. Back wall." Tjeck does not waste time asking questions. He shifts course at once, a gray blur in human skin, then a wolf for three long strides, then man again as he hits the crates. A shout follows, one hard thud, another. Someone scrambles. Someone begs. The sound cuts off under a crack of bone. Jeremy sways where he kneels over me. Blood drips from his ribs to the floor in a steady patter that makes my stomach turn. "You stupid bastard," he says, voice thin with
*Adis* Just as Ela’s hook descends toward me, time seems to stretch, every agonizing second feeling like an eternity. I brace myself for the pain that’s promised to swallow me whole. But then… out of nowhere… a blur of fur bursts from the shadows, leaping with a ferocity that takes me by surprise. A massive wolf tackles Ela, knocking her to the ground, the force of the impact sending her hook flying. I watch, wide-eyed, as the creature sinks its teeth into her shoulder, a primal growl echoing through the warehouse. The world feels suspended as they wrestle, the chaos of fur and fury overwhelming. “Get off him!” I scream, my voice raw with urgency, but my body remains frozen, still trapped in the grip of electric paralysis. I can only watch as the wolf rips into Ela, the struggle becoming more brutal by the second. But Ela isn’t done yet. Even as the wolf bears down on her, she manages to twist, her hook slicing through the air again. It finds its mark, digging into the wolf’s flan
*Amber* I have to admit that Tjeck was right; he knew exactly what he was doing when he designed my program. Even my days of relaxation are meticulously planned so my muscles get the rest they need to recover from the grueling workouts. Of course, it has cost me pain, sweat, and tears. But I mak
*Tjeck* I find myself alone in the pack training room, lost in my thoughts, when Kattie suddenly appears. The moment I see her, it’s evident that she has been crying; her red-rimmed eyes and quivering lips betray her anguish. Instinctively, I halt my training, turning my full attention to her, sil
*Tjeck* Adis and Kattie stand at opposite ends of the room, their bodies rigid, their eyes averted as if the very sight of each other could spark a wildfire of conflict. “Could you both set aside your bickering for just a moment?” I implore, shifting my gaze between them. I’ve draped a blanket ove
*Amber/Sarah* Waking up in pain isn't new to me; that much I know. But waking up feeling this level of confusion? That’s definitely a first, and my wolf is no help either. I can’t recall what has happened to make my entire body ache like this. Have I been in an accident? Or was it a nasty fight?







