Chapter 503

ARIA

“I know.” Kael said.

• MD

“That must be-” I started.

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“Strange,” he said. “Yes.” A pause. “I grew up thinking of him as a friend. Someone my own age, around our circle, someone my father seemed to look after in the way that adults look after children of people they know.” He was quiet. “The specific way, I understand now, of a man providing for a child he was responsible for without being willing to say why.”

“You didn’t know,” I said.

“For a long time, no,” he said. “When I found out-” he stopped.

“And you exiled him,” I said.

“I exiled him,” he said. “Because he’d known. Not his father’s choices I understood those were his father’s. But Killian had known what he was to my family and had said nothing. Had been in our circle, had been treated as a friend, had moved through our lives.” He paused. “He said once that he thought we were more brothers than friends. I remembered that, after I found out. The specific cruelty of it.”

“He said it because he believed it,” I said. “I’m not defending him. But he said it because it was true, from

his side.”

“From his side,” Kael said. “Yes.”

“The debt Ivory called,” I said. “She meant it.”

“I know she meant it,” he said.

“She doesn’t call debts lightly,” I said.

“I know,” he said. “I know.” He looked at the gate. At the impression. “I’m not going to kill him.”

“I know,” I said.

“I’m not even certain I’m going to exile him again,” he said, and the words came out with the quality of something that had cost him something to say.

“What changed,” I said.

He was quiet for a moment.

“Tonight he was tracked by the network’s survivors,” he said. “Because he helped Ivory. Because he betrayed people he was cooperating with in order to weaken the chains of someone who told him she owed him one.” He paused. “He came here because he had nowhere else to go that was safer than this. And

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the reason he has nowhere else to go is because he’s been exiled from the only pack he ever had a claim to.” He looked at the gate. “I’m not saying that makes everything right. I’m not saying I’m ready to have the full conversation. But he came here, and Ivory called a debt, and—” he stopped.

“And?” I said.

“And I put him through a wall,” Kael said. “Which was probably disproportionate.”

“The crater is quite specific,” I said.

“The crater,” he said, “is architectural.”

“It has a specific shape,” I said.

“The stonework settles,” he said.

“Kael.” I said.

He looked at me.

“The break ends tomorrow,” I said.

“Yes,” he said.

“And then everything goes back to normal,” I said. “Or the new version of normal. Which includes the Killian situation.”

“And the bunker modification,” he said.

“And the bunker modification,” I agreed.

“And the root,” he said. “Which is still there and Ivory’s still tracking

“And the root,” I agreed.

“And the elder council formal session,” he said.

“And that,” I agreed.

We stood at the gate with the list between us and the crater in the stonework and Silver warm in my head with the specific contentment of a wolf who’d watched a morning develop and was filing everything carefully for later opinions.

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s go see how the secondary clinic situation is developing.”

He looked at the gate one more time.

“The maintenance team,” he said.

“We’ll handle the maintenance team,” I said.

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Chapter 503

“I could tell them there was a-” he started..

“Kael,” I said.

“A structural event,” he said.

“The crater has a person shape,” I said.

“Approximately,” he said.

“Very specifically,” I said.

He looked at the impression. At the very clear outline of shoulders, one arm, a portion of a head.

“I’ll figure out what to tell them,” he said.

“We can say it was a training exercise,” I said.

He looked at me.

“With the gate,” I said.

“That’s not better,” he said.

“It’s not worse,” I said.

He made a sound that was the early edge of a laugh-

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– not the full version, but the place it came from. The

specific quality of someone who was carrying something very heavy and had just found something small to put down for a moment.

“Come on,” I said again.

We went.