“You don’t understand, but maybe if someone had lied and said you said to burn the baby you would know.”

    “Xander, he has said that.”

    “But not to Damon! Damon didn’t even tell us she was pregnant; that’s the point, Serafine. It’s not about just the words,

    he used them to make her hate Eryx and make her get closer to him.”

    Her thumb moves absently along April’s shoulder, grounding herself in that small motion. “You have now started a war with two packs,” she says quietly. “Do you understand that? His father’s, his mother’s. We had an alliance, thin as it was. You severed it in a sitting room.”

    “The alliance was dead the moment he set his sights on April,” I say. “It just hadn’t been buried yet. You don’t call someone an ally when their heir traps a pregnant girl in false stories to keep her from her family.”

    “There were other ways,” she says. “You could’ve restrained him. You could’ve dragged him to his father andid the truth at his feet. You could’ve forced him to confess to her in front of everyone and made them own it. What you did… it felt good, didn’t it?”

    I don’t answer fast enough. She hears the pause and shakes her head, furious and grieving all at once. “You let the wolf

    have that one, and now we live with it.”

    “I let a father have that one,” I say, too low. The guard’s eyes flick to the mirror, then away. I keep my gaze on the road.

    “You didn’t hear it all. You weren’t in the room when he told her he’d been working to erase Eryx in her. You didn’t see her

    face when she looked at me like I was the worst thing in all the worlds because she believed him. She screamed when I

    moved. She curled around the baby like I’d brought the knife. If I had brought him outside and asked his parents to judge him, he would’ve lived long enough to try again. I wasn’t going to give him that minute.”

    She turns back to the window. The silence between us is full of old battles and fresher ones. April shifts in her sleep and

    sighs. The sound shrinks the car. Serafine adjusts the nket higher, tucks it gently around the swell, then leans down to kiss April’s hairline. “You’re safe,” she whispers, the words a promise I intend to make true even if I burn for it.

    We pass out of the pretty part of their territory into the ugly bit where buildings are practical and walls are higher. I check the mirrors, count the headlights, count the gaps. No pursuit yet. That surprises me. Word travels. Blood smells. By morning we’ll have a message. By noon they’ll have decided if they want to send men or send ink.

    “Tell me you didn’t do this because you think bringing April back will somehow save Eryx,” Serafine says quietly. “Tell me you didn’t let that hope slide under your skin and steer your hands.”

    “I did this because Aprit is ours,” I say. “And because every story he told her gave the Hollow another way to crawl into our house. Lies like that don’t just break a heart. They make openings. We’ve got enough of those.”

    She goes very still at that. She doesn’t like me speaking the thing we both think all the time now. She looks at April and lowers her voice even more, in case the sleeping hear. “You will not tell her a word of what’s in Eryx,” she says. “You will not hint at it. You will not let it bleed out of your mouth when you are tired. She has enough to carry.”

    “I know,” I say.

    09:32 Sat, 30 Augu

    b+23/b)

    “You will not put her in front of Eryx until I say the bindings are tight enough,” she adds. “You will not give the Queen a line

    into that child.”

    “I know,” I say again. I press my hand to my knee to keep it from bouncing, then catch myself and make the hand still. The car is a box, and boxes make wolves tense.

    Serafine sighs and lets her head fall back to the seat, still cradling April with the other shoulder. “You just dered yourself judge and executioner on someone else’snd,” she says after a time. “I’ve watched you y those roles for years, but I don’t know if I’ve ever seen you do it for a lie.”

    “It wasn’t only a lie,” I say. “It was theft. He tried to steal our family by starving it. He kept her from us and called it mercy. I won’t hear his ghost tell me he deserved a trial. He got one. He gave me the verdict when he grinned.”

    Her mouth tightens again, but she doesn’t push it. The road hums. The trees grow taller. We cross a line that only the wolves can feel, and the night opens a little. Home has a scent that lives in my ribs. I breathe it and feel some of the iron

    lift.

    Serafine rubs her thumb over April’s knuckles. “Look at her,i” /ishe says, quieter. “Look at what men have done to her. To bring her here like this again. Blood on her shoes. A body behind us. A story no mother would tell a child. Is this the only way we know how to bring anyone home, Xander? With pieces missing on the floor?”

    “It wasn’t going to be clean,” I say. “Not after everything that’s already been spilled.”

    She stares at me for a long moment, then nods once, resigned rather than convinced. “We tell her the truth when she wakes,” she says. “The whole truth about Damon. Not a butchered version that makes her feel stupid. We tell her what he said to you. We tell her what he said to her. We tell her that we didn’te sooner because he made sure we didn’t. And we tell her that Eryx never said those things.”

    “She won’t believe me,” I say.

    “She doesn’t have to believe youi,/ii” /iSerafine says. “She can hear me. I will tell her as a mother. I will tell her what I know of my son. Not the version she met through a stranger, but the one I raised. She can throw the words in my face if she wants.

    She’s earned that much.”

    “She has,” I say. The road curves and the pines part for the track that leads toward our border. I lift the radio and murmur a request to open the south gate quiet and quick. The guard at the post meets us in the trees. The barrier falls back into the dark after we pass, leaving the night the way it was. The men behind us go wide and then tuck back in once thest car

    clears.

    Serafine loosens the seat buckle enough to shift, then settles again so April’s head rests morefortably. The girl sleeps on, the sleep of those who ran out of btears/b, I try not to think about how many times we have brought someone back to this ce in that exact posture.

    “Say it,” Serafine murmurs, eyes still on April. b“/bbSay /bit so I don’t have to keep reading it in your shoulders.”

    “What.”

    “That you’d do it again,” she bsays/b. “That given the same choice, the same room, the same boy smirking, you’d still tear his throat.”

    09:32 Sat, 30 Aug

    “I would,” I say. There is no use pretending otherwise with her. “And I won’t spend a night regretting it.”

    55%

    +23)

    “Then be ready to spend several fighting the fallout,” she says. “Because his mother will not grieve quietly, and his father will not let this pass. We’ll be hearing their answer by dawn.”

    “They can bring it,” I say. “They can bring whatever they want. I’ll greet both.”

    She almost smiles, a small fierce thing that looks like the woman I met when I was young enough to think I could lift the

    world. “I know,” she says.

    We roll into ournd like a tide returning. The night feels different here, the weight in the air a familiar pressure instead of

    a threat. The houses are asleep. The high lights over the yard are a washed–out gold. I point to the infirmary wing rather

    than the main house. Serafine nods. The driver pulls there without asking.

    When we stop, Serafine touches April’s cheek. “Little wolf,” she says, barely more than breath. “We’re home.”

    April doesn’t wake. Hershes twitch. A sound leaves her that could be the start of a cry or the end of one. Serafine looks at me. “Don’te closer,” she says. “Not yet. I’ll take her in with the nurses. You go to the war room and make sure no one does anything stupid when Damon’s people start howling.”

    “I’ll do more than make sure,” I say. I open my door and step out into our air like a maning up from deep water. The guards move to the back, two of them taking positions to lift with Serafine only if she nods. She doesn’t. She gathers April, careful as if lifting ss, and the girl curls without waking into the curve of a body that has held a lot of wounded wolves.

    I watch them go inside. I look up at the slice of moon. I think about the blood on my hands and the words in April’s mouth and the way my,son will look at me when he remembers any of this with a clear head. Then I head for the one room where

    problems wear names I can put on maps.

    The alliance was dead the moment Damon decided to make a story out of our family. Tonight I cut the string. Morning wille with teeth, and I’ll be waiting.

    b3/3 /b