Page 39 of Fated to the Fang

"I'm real. I'm also cold, and your floors are very old and very judgmental." I smile, content with her being here.

Suddenly, the front door swings open. No knock. Celeste stands with salt spray in her hair and urgency carved across her face. She doesn't acknowledge how Ave is dressed and stomps through with an intense stride.

"They're gone," she says. "Owen. Nora. Tracy. Taken in the night."

“The watchers?” I ask.

“Alive,” Celeste says. “That is the problem. The shadow outside Owen’s darkroom remembers you ordering him to the east pier. You never did. Nora’s watcher remembers my seal on a written command. I sent no command. Tracy’s clinic guard was found behind the old dispensary with black shell dust under his nails and six missing minutes.”

Cold goes through me.

“Lucien didn’t break the perimeter,” she says. “He wore our authority through it. Someone gave him the shape of our watch.”

"All three?" Avery's voice goes flat.

"Doors have been left open. Owen's darkroom stripped—every print, every negative. Nora's apron still on the hook, coffee warm. Tracy's bed not slept in." Celeste looks at me. "Mabel is the only one safe. Shaken. Barricaded herself in a cellar. Refusing to leave. Says the monsters will get her."

Lucien. He's made his move. He's taken any tie to Avery. Three, chosen like pieces to a puzzle.

"We go," Avery says, already moving for the door. "Now."

Instinctively I put my arm out willing her to stay. No more danger. I have the words in my mouth, but I swallow them, and drop my arm.

"Avery. I'm not going to cage you anymore." I make myself say the rest. "But you need to know he took them because he wanted to put pressure on you. He wants this reaction. He wants me frightened because that's where mistakes happen. That's what loses wars."

"Then don't let that surface," she says.

Celeste clears her throat. "The council already knows. They've called the chamber."

"Of course they have," I say.

Ave disappears upstairs and returns dressed. Boots. Jacket. Bag across her shoulder. I watch her fasten the strap and feel the old instinct rise again, violent and simple. But I file it away because I know she's not as fragile as my mind allows me to think.

The power emanating from the council chamber is cold. The elders already arranged in a line when we enter. Half of them blame me for letting a human become a lever. The other half are too afraid of Lucien to care about it.

"Why is she here?" Helena asks.

"I brought her because she may see what we don't like before."

"You brought a liability⁠—"

The council stone goes dark. Not dark like shadow. Dark like a held breath. The veins of light that thread the chamber floor dim all at once, and into the silence comes a sound I have not heard in a hundred years: a low, fond laugh, rising up.

"Dorian." My name said with spite. His shape gathers behind Helena in the stone-light, not flesh, not ghost, but something dragged through the mnemosigils. Gold eyes sharpen first, vindictive and amused. "Still hiding. Still building your little pathetic walls, I see. You always did love a secret more than you loved being free."

The elders recoil. Helena does not.

"Lucien," I respond.

"They look so frightened of one human female," his hand waves at Avery. "Centuries of power, and they tremble because a human learned about us. You should be ashamed. I'm ashamed, and I have so little left." The laugh again, warm as a knife left in the sun. "And you, brother. You used to be a blade. Now you're weak. You call yourself protector of this place, but look how easily I took its heart from under you. Any elder still standing beside Dorian Valek should ask whether they follow a protector, or a grieving man holding a human-shaped weakness."

"Where are they?" I say.

"Alive. For now. Owen has such steady hands. Nora makes a wonderful pot of coffee. And Tracy, oh, Tracy. Come and get them, Dorian. Come alone, come reckless, the way you're already aching to. Or I open every wound this town has and let the humans watch their neighbors bleed. Your choice. You were always so good at them."

The gold eyes find Avery last, and linger.

"She's lovely," Lucien murmurs. "I understand entirely."