Any aggression rising in Ithan stalled out at the pain, the loyalty in her face. He squeezed her shoulder. “Thanks for staying, Per.”
She followed him into the Den, hitting an interior button to shut the gates behind them. Ithan paused in the grassy meadow, watching the trees of the park bend in the cool breeze. The blood had been cleaned away from the building’s entrance. The bodies of Sabine and the Astronomer—
“I dumped them in the sewer,” Perry said with quiet rage, reading Ithan’s glance toward where the corpses had been. “They don’t deserve a Sailing. Especially Sabine.”
Surprise sparked in him at the normally peaceful wolf’s act of defiance, but he nodded. “Rotting in the shit of the city seems like a good place for Sabine to wind up,” he said, and Perry huffed a laugh. It wasn’t real amusement. They were both far beyond that.
“Where did you go?” Perry asked, tentatively enough that he knew she was still feeling him out. As a friend, and as her Alpha and Prime. Learning how much she could push.
“It’s a long story,” he said. “But I came back here to get everyone to safety.” He explained about the River Queen and the Blue Court.
“But now,” he finished, “I have to head to the Eternal City.”
Perry studied him, clearly understanding more than he’d said. “So we’re going up against the Asteri?”
“We aren’t doing anything,” he said. “I’m going up against them.”
“But you’re Prime,” she insisted. “You speak for all Valbaran wolves. Your choices are our choices. If you stand against the Asteri, we stand against the Asteri.”
“Then disavow me,” he said. “But I’m going.”
“That’s not what I’m saying,” she said. “I don’t disagree with you—things have to change, and change for the better. But the wolves are scattered at the moment. At vacation homes, on trips … too far to reach the Blue Court before you go off to the Eternal City.”
“So?”
“So get the word out to them before you go. Give them a few hours to find shelter, either by getting to the Blue Court, or by finding somewhere in the wilds to lie low. The second the Asteri see you, the Prime, standing against them in any capacity, they’ll go after the wolves to punish you. And after what happened at the Meadows …” Her eyes flooded with pain. “I don’t think there’s any atrocity they wouldn’t commit.”
Ithan opened his mouth to object. He had to get that bullet and antidote to Bryce now. It might even be too late already.
But he couldn’t live with one more wolf death on his conscience. And if a single pup were harmed because he hadn’t given them time to hide …
“Three hours,” Ithan agreed. “You know how to send encrypted messages?”
Perry nodded.
“Then start getting the word out.” He looked to the building lobby beyond the pillars and the stairs up to it. “And I’ll start digging a grave.”
“A grave?” Perry protested. “But the Sailing—”
“There are no more Sailings,” Ithan said quietly. “The Under-King is dead.”
He was met with stunned silence. Then Perry said, “But—the Bone Quarter.”
“Is a lie. All of it.” Ithan gestured to the phone already in her hand. “Get the word out, then we’ll talk. I’ll tell you everything I know.”
Perry held his stare, her own full of worry and shock and determination. Then she began typing into her phone. “I’m glad, Ithan,” she said quietly, “that you’re Prime.”
That makes one of us, he almost said, but just nodded his thanks.
* * *
Tharion shoved the last gun into a rucksack and turned to where Hypaxia was nesting vials of the antidote into a satchel. “How many do you have?” he asked.
Water whispered in his ears, his heart, his veins. A steady flow of magic, as if a raging river coursed through him. Half a thought and it’d be unleashed.
“Two dozen, give or take a few,” she said quietly. “Not enough.”
“You’re going to need entire factories dedicated to getting it out there,” Tharion said.
She handed him the bag. “Here. Don’t jostle it too much on the trip. Athalar’s lightning holds them together—a little agitation can destabilize the doses to the point where they won’t work.”
He angled his head. “You’re not coming?” He planned to make his way to the Asteri’s palace itself—the most likely place for a confrontation between Bryce and the Asteri. Gods, the very notion of it was insane. Suicidal. But for his friends, for Midgard, he’d go, antidote in tow.