by Emma Savant
I shot her a quelling look that did nothing to mellow the intensity of her gaze. They all had the same question, witches and werewolves alike: Why were they in our parlor, sitting across from monsters?
From the other side of the room, Grandma gave me a discreet thumbs-up. I took another deep breath.
“I’ve been on a case for a few weeks that’s snowballed into something bigger,” I said. “The enemy I’m facing isn’t necessarily more dangerous than the ones I know many of you face every night, but this is different because it’s not just one person. It’s a whole pack.”
Murmurs bubbled from the collected group, and a few wolves shot to their feet, and I realized a second too late that everyone in the room thought I was about to start attacking the Wildwoods. I held up a hand, and so did Brendan. A few of his wolves sat back down, slowly, their faces tight.
“I think some of you here have heard of the Burnside pack,” I said.
A few of the Wildwoods seemed to let out sighs, and one of them settled back into his seat and frowned at me with his hand covering his chin.
“Some of you Daggers came to my rescue recently when a group of them were about to attack a birthday party full of Humdrum children. I found out about the attack thanks to Alpha Brendan.”
I ran my hands across my jeans again. My heart was racing, but no one had bolted from the room. That was something.
“We have reason to believe they’re being led by an alpha male named Joseph Brick who has a lot of influence in the Glimmering world,” I said.
Recognition flickered across a few faces, mostly among the Daggers who had worked at Carnelian at various points in their careers.
“Possibly in coordination with an alpha female. We also have reason to believe that they’ve hunted innocents before and have no plans of stopping. A small group of us went to investigate, and the Burnsides were more than ready to hand us over to their alpha, whose intentions were—not great.”
I took a deep breath; this last bit was the part I couldn’t stand to say out loud. I choked the words out anyway.
“Joseph Brick appears to have a connection with Sienna Hunter.”
The murmurs were louder this time, erupting quickly into a cacophony of voices. A few of the wolves shouted about how they thought she was in prison for her crimes and how prison wasn’t enough for her, and at least half the Daggers were demanding how I knew and where she was now.
I called for silence, but this crowd was beyond me. Finally, Grandma held up a hand and snapped. A bolt of lightning crackled from her fingertips, the lights flickered, and thunder slammed through the room.
28
Everyone fell silent.
“That’s all we know.” I exhaled slowly and surveyed the room. I had to take advantage of this moment. “Nelly did some investigating and learned only that Sienna’s lawyers struck some kind of bargain with the Faerie Court to get her out early. As far as we can tell, Mr. Brick agreed to take personal responsibility for her, claiming he’s prepared to undertake her rehabilitation.” I couldn’t keep the contempt out of my voice. “It appears he’s done this for multiple people in the past, all of whom have gone on to lead exemplary lives.”
As werewolves. As members of his pack. As the kind of people who had no compunctions about murdering defenseless children, so long as they could do it under cover of darkness and respectability.
“Is she a werewolf?” Rose demanded.
“And she’s part of this Burnside pack?” Robin said.
I jumped in before the chaos of questions could start again. “We don’t know. I only saw her briefly.”
“You’re sure it was her?” Poppy said.
“It was Sienna,” Adamine said grimly. “No doubts there.”
They all looked at me, waiting for the ah-hah moment where I’d tell them why they were all gathered here. I let my focus travel across their faces, taking in the fear and anger and surprise and confusion. I recognized everything they were feeling, because I was feeling it, too.
“We don’t know what this pack is going to do next,” I said. “But I do know a few things. I know that the members of the Burnside pack won’t hesitate to murder innocent people for sport. I know that they’re likely under the protection of a powerful man who’s going to be hard to nail down. And I know that they’re aware of us. Sienna will no doubt have told them everything about us—about our role as Daggers, about our personal weaknesses, about the magical protections that surround this property, everything.”
Blaze raised a hand. I nodded at her.
“Do they have plans to attack us?”
“I don’t know,” I said. That felt like my answer to everything these days. The weight of everything I didn’t know was overwhelming. “But if they continue the way they’ve been going up until now, chances are good that we’re going to have to attack them. I know most of you are aware that there’s been a spike in violent crime in the city lately. I don’t have proof, but I think they’re involved.” I glanced at the floor, debating how much to say, then straightened my shoulders. “One of them referred to Humdrums as ‘prime meat’ and another claimed to love ‘fresh naiad.’ It sounds like they’ve been hunting. A lot.”
Several people in the room cringed, Daggers and Wildwoods alike.
“Personally, I think we should go after them,” I said. “We don’t have enough hard evidence for the Waterfall Palace to step in.”
“Yes, we do,” Blaze said. “We have the bodies of the wolves we killed when they attacked the Humdrum party. We turned those over to the palace.”
This was a point I hadn’t considered, but Grandma was already shaking her head.
“No one came to claim those bodies,” Grandma said. “They had no criminal record and no known affiliation with any werewolf packs in the city.”
“Brick’s wolves keep a low profile,” Brendan added.
His pack looked toward him with increased attention, while the Daggers seemed to tense a little.
“When we scoped them out at the mesmer club, it was pretty clear they were a new pack. New pack probably means lots of people who haven’t been wolves long.”
“I’d never heard of the group, and I tend to know everybody who’s everybody on the wolf scene,” Cate added. “Whether we’re talking about illegal gaming parlors or Humdrum hunting, Brick clearly doesn’t want to leave a trail.”
I gave her a quick smile of thanks and cleared my throat. “The longer the Burnside wolves are allowed to go free, the higher the chances that they’ll attack another party of kids, and we won’t find out in time to stop them. And I’ll be honest, I don’t want to give Sienna a chance to figure out a way through the mansion’s defenses. We don’t have just ourselves to protect anymore, we have our allies, too.” I glanced over toward the Wildwoods.
Brendan gave me a serious nod, and a spot of warmth bloomed in my chest.
Our respective families didn’t trust one another yet. Brendan, though, was a young alpha, and I was a future Stiletto, and we were on the same side. I trusted him with my life. He’d proved that he felt the same by agreeing to move his pack onto Grandma’s land.
The coven and the pack weren’t friends, but Brendan and I were.
Now we had to hope our families would follow.
“If you all agree,” I said, meeting people’s eyes as I was able. “Then I’d like your ideas. We need to find a way to catch the pack. We need evidence to bring them in to the Faerie Court. But to get that evidence and not let anyone slip through the cracks, we have to get them all in one place without them getting suspicious.”
“And they’re going to be suspicious,” Rowan added.
I looked over at her, startled at the sudden support. She faced the group with a clear gaze and strong voice, and I shot her a grateful smile.
“Sienna is going to have them all on their guard.”
One of the wolves raised his hand. I hadn’t met this wolf before; he was young, with large dark eyes set in a serious face.
I had to strain to pick up his timid voice.
“But you’ll want to catch them while they’re out. They’ll be able to defend themselves in their den better than outside it, and you shouldn’t give them that extra leverage.”
“Thank you,” I said.
He nodded, swallowed, and seemed to shrink back into his seat.
After a long, loaded silence, Rowan raised her hand, too.
“Since Sienna knows us and the way we operate, it’s important that we take them by surprise,” she said. “We can’t be predictable. No fashion events, no infiltrating Mr. Brick’s clubs.”
“I agree,” I said. “Thank you.”
Slowly, hesitant comment by hesitant comment, they shared their thoughts: We shouldn’t rush. We had to plan for a new moon, or maybe a waxing crescent, to avoid lending extra power to the Burnsides’ transformations. We could have law enforcement standing by—but only people we knew and trusted, because we didn’t know all the wolves’ day jobs or whether they had friends that might let our plans slip. Nelly shouldn’t be there, since an alpha would target another alpha, and we wanted their attempts to fight us off to be scattered.
Grandma’s lips pursed a little at this suggestion, but she swallowed back her objections and allowed me to keep guiding the conversation.
As the thoughts flowed, the witches and werewolves alike loosened up. They built on one another’s ideas, and when one of the witches made a snarky joke, most of the wolves joined in on the laughter. In time, the conversation took on a life of its own, and I started to feel small and unimportant.
I had never liked feeling unimportant—not back when Sienna had been constantly stealing my thunder, and not recently when Mr. Brick hadn’t seemed to remember me.
But this time, for the first time, my own insignificance was inspiring. The pack and the coven were talking to one another—not just talking, but collaborating in a way that made them feel almost like one group.
I looked back to Grandma, and she winked at me.
This must be how she felt when things were going well, I realized: like she didn’t matter, and like it wasn’t about her.
And that was the way it should be.
Finally, I held up a hand. “It’s getting late. Anyone who’s willing to be involved in this, meet back here tomorrow.”
“And grab some more cake on the way out,” Rowan called. “I’m bringing pie next time.”
29
“As requested,” I said.
I slid a few papers across Grandma’s silver desk. She examined the designs and made a few adjustments with a red pencil to the drape of a skirt and the angle of a collar. Finally, she handed them back.
“These are good,” she said. “This is the kind of quality I expect from my designers.”
I felt my face light up.
“Really?”
“Really, sabre,” she said. “These are excellent. I’ll likely end up using that cocktail dress in a future collection.”
I wiggled in my chair. I had no chill, and I didn’t care. Grandma laughed at me.
“When did you find the time for this?”
I shrugged. “Was sketching a bit during the latest two meetings, and I try to do a little before bed. I squeeze things in here and there.”
“Me, too.” She pulled a box of chocolates out of her desk drawer and poked it across the table to me, then leaned back in her seat. “How is the plan coming?”
“It’s coming,” I said. It had been almost a month since I’d first gotten the coven and pack into a room together, a month full of collaboration the likes of which I hadn’t dared hope for, and the plan had been slowly coming into shape. “Alec has been helping a ton. The logistics are still ridiculous, though.”
“Logistics always are,” Grandma said. “But you’ve coordinated the better part of a fashion show. This should be easy.”
“That’s what I keep telling myself.”
I bit into one of the chocolates, and orange cream laced with fairy dust oozed out of the shell and across my tongue. Grandma picked up a white chocolate and turned it over, as if staring at it hard enough would tell her what was inside.
“These are from Mr. Brick,” she said, gesturing at the chocolates.
I almost spit mine out, but she waved a hand and popped hers into her mouth.
“Nothing wrong with them,” she said. “Trust me, I checked. It’s just a power play. I sent back an absurdly large flower arrangement and congratulated him on being named one of Magician Monthly’s most influential men of the year.”
“That’s, like, championship-level passive aggression,” I said. “Unless he’s trying to hint at a truce?”
Grandma scoffed. “He’s toying with me.”
“Might be good to get the word out that you’ll be at the Waterfall Palace fundraising dinner the night of the harvest festival,” I said.
“Already on it.” She leaned forward and propped one of her elbows on the desk so she could rest her chin in her hand. “Speaking of which, do you think the Burnsides took the bait?”
“The Wildwoods have been spreading the news,” I said with a shrug. “If I were a werewolf, I’d think our chosen spot was a perfect hunting ground. But I don’t know if they’ll take the bait.”
“It would be easier if we could infiltrate the pack.” Grandma sighed and reached for another chocolate. “We’ll do what we can and hope for the best. It’s worked for us so far.”
“Which is no guarantee it will work this time.”
But we couldn’t wait around for guarantees. We had an opportunity, and we had to take it. My job was to make sure we were ready.
I should have known that one of the biggest challenges would have come from within my own team.
“Brendan,” I said, as if somehow the mere mention of his name could knock some sense into his thick skull. “Why is this so hard for you to understand? Nelly isn’t going. You’re not more special than the Stiletto.”
I slammed the tea things around. Chances were good half the house could hear us, and I was glad. Maybe someone else would show up and knock some sense into him.
“It’s because I’m special that you want me to stay home,” Brendan said. “Newsflash: It’s not happening.”
“You’re an alpha.”
“Which means I should be there with my pack.”
“If Brick sees you there, you’re dead,” I said, turning on him with a half-filled kettle in my hand. Water sloshed onto the floor. “And if you’re dead, your pack is going to be without an alpha. So how exactly is that going to help anyone?”
“If Brick or Sienna see you,” he countered, “you’re also dead. You’re a future Stiletto, and Sienna hates your guts. Why do you think you’ve got a better shot than me?”
“I’m not an actual alpha.”
“No, you’re an actual Stiletto,” he said, mocking my tone.
He glared at me as if we were in the middle of a no-holds-barred staring contest, then raised his eyebrows.
“You’re wasting water.”
I spun back around to the faucet and finished filling the electric teakettle. It was unreal, how angry he made me sometimes. I would put my life in his hands without a second thought, but I also thought I might scream if we stayed in the same room for a minute longer.
I slammed the kettle into its base a little harder than was good for it and turned it on. I took a long, deep breath before turning back to face him.
He was sitting at the table, his jaw set in a stubborn line, and I wondered how difficult it would be to just tie him to that chair and leave him there.
“I’m not going to hide,” he said flatly. “Sienna murdered members of my pack. Any one of the Burnsides would murder you if they got a chance. I’m not going to lose the opportunity to avenge my family or let you put yourself in that kind of danger without me there to watch your back. Not. Happening.”
There
was a finality to his words and the set of his jaw. I realized I may as well have tried to knock down this old brick mansion with the force of my breath, for all the good it would do me.
“I know you don’t like it,” Brendan said.
No apology followed. I set a mug on the table in front of him so hard I was surprised it didn’t crack.
“What kind of tea do you want?” I said.
“The kind that’s not made of wolfsbane,” he said.
I cut my eyes at him and dropped a mint teabag into my empty cup. The herb was supposed to be soothing, though I wasn’t sure even Grandma’s strongest witchy brews would be enough to stop me from being furious at him.
Alec wandered into the kitchen a moment later, Rowan on his heels.
“Sounds like everyone is very good friends in here,” Alec observed.
I pulled out my dry teabag and chucked it at his head. He caught it and tossed it back.
“Couldn’t help overhearing.” Rowan pulled a chair next to me and rubbed my back, soothing me like she did the coven’s toddlers whenever they threw themselves into tantrums over not getting the right color of sippy cup.
I knew I should feel insulted by the attention, but it felt nice and actually did calm my rage a bit. I dropped my head onto the table and let her have at it.
A moment later, the kitchen door opened again, and Cate came through. She helped herself to a mug and rummaged through the box of teabags without looking at us.
The wolves had gotten comfortable in the mansion over the past month, comfortable enough to help themselves to tea and whatever snacks were lying around, and it warmed my heart a little. Nothing bonded people like a shared enemy, Grandma had observed recently. I was learning the truth of that firsthand.
“None of the wolves are staying home.” Alec fixed me with his serious hazel eyes. “You hurt one member of the pack, you hurt us all. And Sienna hurt us badly.”
“You weren’t even in the pack at the time,” I grumbled, and everyone ignored me.
“Row, you have any more of those macarons?” Cate said.