Chapter 27
Tamsin
We made it back to the safehouse a few hours later in the dead of night. No one spoke much. There wasn’t anything to say that wouldn’t make it worse. We washed what we could, stripped out of our damp clothes, and fell onto our cots exhausted.
I didn’t remember closing my eyes.
I remembered opening them.
The light in the room had changed when I woke. The sun had risen with that particular gray-yellow cast London was known for. When I padded into the common room, I found that the others were already awake.
Elias sat at the table, hair damp from a quick wash, a cup in his hands and yesterday’s map folded neatly beside him.
Bishop was sitting beside him, drinking a cup of tea.
Griff lay on his back by the hearth, one arm over his eyes, not asleep but not moving either.
Nox was gone, which meant he was either on the roof or in the back alley listening to the neighborhood.
Eamon sat by the hearth with his bag open, but for once he wasn’t checking his supplies.
“You’re awake,” Elias said quietly.
“Apparently.” My voice came out rougher than I liked.
Nox slipped back through the door then, closing it behind him with his usual casual care.
“Street’s busy this morning,” he said. “The rumors have started. People are beginning to talk about a group of missing men. Politicians whose schedules have suddenly cleared. A scientist overdue from an inspection. There’s talk of a ‘technical incident’ at one of the lower facilities, but nothing official. ”
A knock came at the door in a recognizable cadence that told me it was one of Mirae’s people.
Nox stepped over and opened it halfway.
Immediately, it seemed like the world turned a bit brighter.
Zara came in first. Her hair was braided back, coat unbuttoned, eyes bright despite the shadows under them.
Sera followed, shoulders squared, expression as hopeful and tired as I felt.
Behind them, their wolves filed in, and with them came others, faces I didn’t know at first, then recognized from descriptions and old records.
“Hope we’re not late,” Zara said.
“You’re right on time,” I replied.
We met in the middle of the room. She pulled me into a quick, hard hug that smelled like sea air and woodsmoke, then let go before either of us could get sentimental about it. Sera’s embrace was shorter but just as real.
“You alright?” she asked into my shoulder.
“I’ve been better,” I said. “You?”
“About the same.”
We both stepped back, gave each other a fast visual check. Neither of them had any obvious injuries, which made me sigh in relief.
Behind them, the rescued wolves clustered near the wall, eyes taking in the room. One of them, a woman in her forties with iron-gray hair pinned up in a style that belonged to better days, held herself ramrod straight despite the faint tremor in her hands.
I knew her name. It was Lady Faera Fairburne. Once the wife of a prominent shipping merchant, publicly shamed when her wolf nature manifested and shipped off to Ireland as a ‘danger to society.’
Another was a broad-shouldered man with a crooked nose and a grin that kept trying to show up despite the circumstances.
“Jonah Pike,” Zara said quietly, catching my glance. “Used to run the eastern docks. Knows everyone. Complains constantly.”
“I’m a delight,” Jonah said. His accent was pure English, roughened by time away. “You lot have terrible tea, by the way.”
A third was thinner, with ink-stained fingers and nervous eyes that darted from face to face.
“Lionel Ashby,” Sera supplied. “Clerk. Knows where the bodies are buried on paper, at least.”
Lionel gave a jerky little wave. “Not literally,” he said quickly. “Not… most of them, anyway.”
“How are they?” I asked Zara.
“They’ve all been stabilized, but it was a bit touch and go there for a moment,” she said. “The serum works. They’re still a bit jumpy though. Still tired. But they’re here, safe and mostly sound.”
Sera pulled a small canvas bag from her coat and set it on the table with a soft clink. “And we brought these.”
Elias untied the top and peered inside. Small glass vials glinted in the lamplight, each one stoppered and labeled in a careful hand.
“We brought more of the healing serum,” Sera offered. Eamon was already moving closer. His fingers brushed one of the vials, a look of profound relief and excitement on his face. “This is… more than I expected, more than I could have hoped for.”
Sera shrugged. “I wanted to be prepared for anything.”
Zara nodded. “And for people not believing us.”
“Which they won’t,” Mirae said from the doorway.
None of us had heard her arrive.
She stepped inside, pale hair pinned back, coat neat. Her gaze skimmed the room, quick, cataloguing.
“Good,” she said. “Everyone important is still alive.”
“Mostly,” Nox said.
She ignored him.
“The city’s holding a council session tomorrow,” she went on. “Dressed it up like a public reassurance. Leaders, major council members, financial backers. Half the people who signed off on the program you’ve just disrupted will be in the same room.”
“Convenient,” Bishop said from the window.
“Dangerous,” Mirae corrected. “But yes. Convenient.”
“We’re going,” I said.
She nodded once. “Of course you are.” Mirae stepped closer to the table, resting her fingertips on the wood. “So, this is how it’s going to play out.”
The room quieted.
“The assembly hall is going to be secure, guarded by a number of soldiers on every entrance,” she said. “Tamsin, your pack will go in first. I’ll sneak you in through one of the loading docks. My people will make sure to keep the guards under control.”
“Fine by me,” I said.
“Zara, Sera,” Mirae continued, “you’ll bring your people in later. The wolves from Ireland will be coming with you.”
“Where do I stand?” Bishop asked.
“You’ll be our centerpiece,” she replied without hesitation. “You’ll speak to what happened to you, and you’ll do it in a way they can’t pretend not to understand.”
He inclined his head. “I can do that.”
“And the rest of us?” Elias asked.
“You make sure no one decides that the easiest way to deal with inconvenient truth is to start shooting. You don’t give them an excuse to say the wolves turned the event into a riot,” Mirae said simply.
“Alright,” I said. “Then that’s what we do.”
Zara met my eyes. “You sure you’re up for this?”
“No,” I said honestly. “But we’re doing it anyway.”
Sera exhaled, the corner of her mouth tightening. “Good. I’d hate to have crossed half the world for nothing.”
There was a low ripple of tired amusement around the room.
When everyone quieted, I glanced at Sera’s bag. “And the serum?”
Sera nodded. “We’ve already dosed the ones we brought from Ireland. We weren’t going to drag them into London still feral.”
Then Sera crossed to Eamon and held out a stack of papers. “I copied what I could before we left. There was something in there about dosing and exposure.”
Eamon took the pages and skimmed them quickly. His eyes narrowed, then he straightened a little. “Wait. What about preventative use.”
Sera looked at him. “What do you mean?”
He tapped the paper. “This. The compound doesn’t only seem to work after exposure. I think,” he said slowly, “that if the compound works the way it appears to, a prophylactic dose will blunt or block the feral reaction if someone tries anything… creative.”
I exhaled. “Then we don’t wait for them to be creative. We prepare.” I turned to Eamon. “Can you handle dosing everyone?”
He hesitated only a heartbeat. “Yes. It might not be pleasant for some of them. I’m not sure of the side effects, but it’s safer than the alternative.”
“Then we start now,” I said.
Griff rolled his shoulders. “You heard her. Line up, children.”
Nox grinned. “Why does it sound like we’re about to get scolded and vaccinated at the same time?”
“Because you are,” Eamon said dryly.
We cleared the table and turned the common room into a makeshift clinic. Coats came off. Sleeves were rolled up. Vials clinked softly as Eamon laid them out, hands steady despite the fatigue etched into his face. Bishop helped by prepping clean cloth and boiling water in a kettle over the hearth.
“Who’s first?” Eamon asked.
“I am,” I said, stepping forward and offering my arm.
He didn’t argue. He swabbed the inside of my forearm with a damp cloth, found the vein by touch, and slid the needle in at a shallow angle. The serum burned on the way in like heat spreading under my skin.
“Any dizziness?” he asked.
“Not yet.”
“Don’t be brave,” he said, in that tone that had no room for argument. “Tell me if you feel anything.”
I nodded.
He moved on to Elias next. Elias didn’t flinch. Griff grumbled but held still. Nox cracked a joke and then hissed quietly when the burn hit. Bishop watched his own injection with clinical detachment.
Zara’s wolves went next, then Sera’s. There were a few winces, but they all took their injections quietly and without much complaint.
Eamon checked them over one by one. He asked questions about dizziness and nausea, listened to the answers, and when he got to the end of the line, he seemed satisfied.
When he finally straightened, his shoulders sagged. “Alright,” he said. “We should be covered.”