Page 40 of Fated to the Fang

The stone brightens. He wasn't physically here because he's gone. He used the mnemosigils to place himself here. The chamber shakes—elders on their feet, and voices climbing, arguing to end her.

I have kept the bond hidden because secrecy was the only shield I had. Now secrecy has become the blade at her throat. If they vote before the old law is spoken, Avery is only a human witness. If I speak it now, she becomes protected under a law even Helena cannot pretend has vanished.

"Avery Quinn is my mate."

Silence drops like a blade.

"By the old law, harm to her is challenge to me. Every elder here is witness. Whoever lifts a hand risks waking a law most of you preferred to call extinct. Lucien made her a lever because of that. She can't be touched."

It is not a love speech. It's a declaration they need to be aware of. Avery steps to me and takes my hand. Showing them she feels it too.

"I'm going after my friends, with him or around him. So decide fast whose side this room is on." Avery declares.

Helena studies us both.

"The council has turned into a battlefield," she says to me. "Some of these elders will not survive the choosing. But Lucien is worse than a human in the chamber. Go. Bring them back if you can. The council will not intervene."

Outside, the sky has gone black. It is not night, but the universe knows what's about to take place. Celeste is with us counting allies on her fingers, mapping the tunnels. Avery is at my shoulder, alive, choosing, and the bond sings to me even now.

Owen, Nora, and Tracy are somewhere. Lucien has surfaced like a nightmare returned from the ocean. The council is splitting down its ancient spine.

And Lucien waits for me.

25

AVERY

Weeks here, and I've never felt the ground shift under it until now. Dorian walks beside me, Celeste a half step ahead, two of his allies behind. Nobody speaks until we reach the stairwell.

My hands are steady, which surprises me, because everything under them is not. Owen is gone. Nora is gone. Tracy is gone—taken because they stood near me while I pulled threads I didn't understand. The guilt is physically low in my stomach. I have decided it can be useful or be nothing. I am choosing useful.

"The eastern tunnels run under Saltline," Celeste starts. "If he's holding them there, we move fast, he won't see us⁠—"

"You're both thinking like vampires," I say.

They stop. Strange, how a sentence can make two old things turn at once.

"Lucien took humans. Not you. Three. I can't move like you. How do you expect my help? You need to get more blueprints of the tunnels."

Dorian studies me. "And how do you expect us to do that?"

"You don't. Malcolm Greer does."

"Greer," Dorian says. "He doesn't know what we are."

"He knows something's wrong. He's known for years and never confronted it. You can't rescue humans while refusing every human system. Pick one. You want them back, we need to get clever. We must know every nook and cranny in those tunnels."

Celeste tilts her head, a small recalibration. She doesn't disagree.

Greer's in his office, and he doesn't get up when we come in.

"You look like hell, Dr. Quinn." His eyes move over Dorian, over Celeste, and something tightens. "And you brought company."

"Three people are missing," I say. "Owen. Nora, and Tracy. Not run off. Taken. And they're connected—to the seal die-offs, to the people who went quiet—every buried piece. It's organized. Same hands."

"That's a hell of a claim."

"You already half believe it. You've been filing reports nobody acts on. You know this town's been lying to itself."