Chapter 645

KILLIAN

“She rolled out,” I said. “Before the car went over. She’s in the treeline.”

“Or they have her,” Kael said.

“They have her,” Nina said, quietly.

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The words landed in the water between us with the specific weight of true things said plainly.

We came out of the water.

The car was sinking.

Kael looked at it.

Something moved in his expression that was not the deranged version and was not the managed version and was the version that existed when Kael had received something he was going to carry for a long time and was deciding how to carry it.

“We get the car,” he said.

“Kael-” Jordan started.

“We get the car,” he said. “We’re not leaving it.”

“The mission-”

“The mission is thirteen miles and we are all wet and the car is in the water and we are not leaving it,” he said. “Give me a minute.”

Jordan gave him a minute.

It took six of them – wolves with full pack strength and the specific determination of a of people who’d been told they were leaving something behind and had decided not to the car out of the water and into the treeline.

It was wet.

It was damaged.

The cassette player might be gone.

group

—

–

to get

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The photographs were hopefully still in the door pocket.

We stood around it in the treeline, wet and bruised and several of us carrying the specific quality of people who’d just been in something and were processing what that meant, and the Ivory-shaped space was present in the way that spaces were present when someone had been in them and wasn’t anymore.

“Thirteen miles,” Nina said.

“Thirteen miles,” Jordan confirmed.

“On foot,” Elite said.

“Yes,” Jordan said.

“Injured,” Elite said.

“Yes,” Jordan said.

“After a car flip and a waterfall,” Elite said.

“Yes,” Jordan said.

“Thirteen miles,” Elite said, with the specific tone of someone filing this under things that were being done regardless of how they were catalogued.

Kael was looking at the treeline.

In the direction that was not the thirteen miles.

In the direction that was Ivory.

“Kael,” I said.

He looked at me.

“She made herself bait,” I said. “So we could get out. So the car could go over and take us with it and they’d have her and we’d be free.”

“I know what she did,” he said.

“She planned it,” I said. “It wasn’t impulsive. She had the phone ready. She had coordinates. She called Plan B before the car went over. She planned to give herself up.”

“I KNOW what she did,” he said.

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“Okay,” I said.

“And when we’ve walked thirteen miles,” he said, “we’re getting her back.”

“Yes,” I said. “We are.”

He turned toward the thirteen miles.

Then the treeline moved.

Finished

Not the enemy version – the specific quality of movement that was different from attack, organized but not aggressive, the particular way that people appeared when they’d been briefed to appear at a specific location and time.

“Who the-” Jordan started.

A figure emerged.

Casual.

The word that arrived for the specific quality of how the figure emerged was *casual*, and in the context of the past hour of car flips and waterfall descents and root activations and werewitches, *casual* was the most striking possible quality.

“Wow,” the figure said, looking at us – at the wet, the bruised, the car in the treeline, the group of seven people who’d collectively been through the past hour. “Ivory said you’d need a ride. She did not fully convey-” he gestured at the comprehensive state of everything. “This.”

He looked at Kael.

Kael looked at him.

“Ian,” Kael said.

“Alpha,” Ian said.

“Solander sent you,” Kael said.

“Ivory sent coordinates and a very specific set of instructions,” Ian said. “Solander provided the vehicles and the personnel. Ivory’s network is-” he paused, searching for the word. “Extensive.”

“Her healing network,” Jordan said, with the tone of someone who was still, even now, updating their understanding of the scope of what Ivory had built.

“Among other things,” Ian said, with the tone of someone who’d been in Ivory’s network for long enough to understand that naming it as one thing was insufficient.

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Kael looked at the direction Ivory had gone.

At the thirteen miles ahead.

At the vehicles that lan was indicating, visible through the trees.

“How many did she send,” Kael said.

“Twelve, lan said. “Personnel and vehicles. She was specific about the number.”

“Of course she was,” Nina said.

“She’s always right,” Jordan said, and his voice had the specific quality of someone saying something true that was also complicated and was also true anyway.

“The moon goddess loves her,” Nina said.

“She always is,” I said.

Kael looked at the treeline one more time.

At the space where Ivory wasn’t.

“Let’s move,” he said.

We moved.

ARIA

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Ian drove like someone who’d been driving in emergency situations for long enough that emergency had become his baseline..

Not recklessly the distinction was important and visible. He drove with the specific focused quality of someone who was always calculating three moves ahead of the current position, the route and the cover and the contingency for the contingency. He’d had two additional people with him when he’d emerged from the trees, both of them with the specific quality of people who’d been briefed and were executing and didn’t require explanation at every step.

I’d clocked this within the first five minutes of being in the new vehicle – Ian’s car, larger than Kael’s, more practical, the kind of vehicle that was chosen for what it could carry rather than what it communicated. We were distributed through it with the specific rearrangement of people who’d been in a different car twenty minutes ago and were calibrating to the new configuration.

Kael was in the front.

He was not entirely present in the way he was usually present the fury had been compressed

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back into the managed layer by the specific combined effort of Nina and Jordan and the Alpha’s own recognition that fury was not what the next phase required. But the compression was visible. The managed layer was doing significant work and the work showed.

Ian was driving.

He was also managing Kael in the specific way I was noticing – the way you managed someone who was important to you and volatile in ways that had specific patterns, the way you provided information and space and the right amount of silence in the proportions that the specific person required rather than the general person.

It was Ivory’s approach.

Not identical – Ian had his own version of it, the specific quality of a healer who’d developed their management style through a different twelve years with a different Alpha. But the underlying instinct was the same. The reading-the-room before entering the room. The information delivered at the right moment rather than the available moment. The specific patience of someone who understood that waiting was sometimes the most active thing you could do.

Silver said: *He’s to Solander what Ivory is to Kael.*

*I was just thinking that, I said.

*The healer,* Silver said. *The one who keeps the Alpha functional when the Alpha’s version of functional is complicated.*

*Yes,* I said.

*Different people,* Silver said. *Same job.*

–

I watched Ian make a micro-adjustment to the route without announcing the adjustment — the specific move of someone who’d received information through a channel he was monitoring and had incorporated it into the current plan without disrupting the car’s atmosphere. His eyes had gone to the side mirror at a specific angle and then he’d turned slightly earlier than the original route had suggested.

“Ian,” Jordan said, from the back.

“I see it,” Ian said.

“What,” Kael said.

“Northern approach has more movement than it should,” Ian said. “We’re adjusting.”

“Derek,” Jordan said.

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“Derek’s people.” lan confirmed. “He’s got the forest covered. I’ve been getting updates through my network – he’s running werewitches, nightwalkers, and wolves in a search pattern through this section of forest.”

“How wide,” Jordan said.

“Wide enough that we need this route,” Ian said.

“Nightwalkers,” Elite said, from the back, with the specific quality of someone who’d received information they had professional opinions about.

“Yes,” Ian said.

“In daylight,” Elite said.

“The cloud cover is sufficient for them today,” Ian said. “They’re not comfortable but they’re functional.”

“Derek is committed,” Jordan said.

“He’s looking for Kael specifically,” Ian said. “The static was designed to incapacitate the strongest wolf in the group – it was calibrated for an Alpha King.”

“Alpha King,” I said.

Several people in the car looked at me.

“Kael,” I said. “Alpha King.”

Nina looked at me with the expression of someone who’d just realized something hadn’t been explained.

“Shadowmere is not the only pack Kael manages,” she said.

“I knew that,” I said. “I thought it was – the territory has several packs in it-”

“The Southern Isles,” Nina said. “All of the packs found in the Southern Isles territory are under Kael’s management. He’s the Alpha King of the Southern Isles.”

“How many,” I said.

“Twenty-five,” Kael said. “When I last checked.”

“When you last checked was before the curse,” Nina said.

“Yes,” Kael said.

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“Since the curse,” Nina said, “we’ve had-”

“Fifty,” Kael said.

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He said it flatly, the way he said things that had a weight he wasn’t fully processing right now because other things were requiring the processing capacity.

“Fifty packs,” I said.

“We were busy while you were cursed,” Nina said to Kael, with the specific tone of someone delivering information that had been waiting for the appropriate moment.

Kael looked at her.

“Fifty,” he said.

“Twenty-five additional packs came under Southern Isles management in three years,” Nina said. “Some of it was organic – packs whose previous leadership situation meant they needed the structure. Some of it was less organic.”

“Less organic meaning,” Kael said.

“Meaning Jordan and Elite and I made certain decisions,” Nina said, “in your name, with the full pack council’s backing, and the decisions were good decisions, and the packs are well-managed, and you’re welcome.”

“I-” Kael started.

“You’re welcome,” Nina said again.

“I have fifty packs,” Kael said.

“You have fifty packs,” Nina confirmed.

“That I didn’t know about,” Kael said.

“You knew about twenty-five,” Nina said. “The other twenty-five are the new developments.”

“In three years,” Kael said.

“You were cursed for three years,” Nina said. “We kept busy.”

Ian made a sound that was very controlled.

“Ian,” Jordan said.

“Nothing,” Ian said.

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“Ian,” Jordan said again.

“I’m just-” lan paused. “Solander has forty-five packs under Eastern Territories management. I’ve been managing the administrative load of the Eastern Territories for eight years.” He paused. “I would have appreciated knowing it was possible to simply acquire twenty-five additional packs while your Alpha was unavailable.”

“We didn’t acquire them,” Nina said. “They came under protection agreements.”

“Twenty-five protection agreements,” Ian said.

“In three years,” Nina said.

“While managing a curse,” Ian said.

“Correct,” Nina said.

“And an alpha who was-” Ian stopped.

“Deranged,” Jordan offered.

“We say cursed,” Kael said.

“We say deranged with affection,” Jordan said.

“You say it without affection half the time,” Kael said.

“The affection is there,” Jordan said. “It’s underneath the deranged.”

Ian’s phone rang.

He answered it through the car’s system with the ease of someone who’d done this during every other driving situation and this one was no different.