Mag-log inThe crossing was secure.That did not make the people trapped around it innocent.Or guilty.Which was the problem.Six wolves had been caught inside the movement created by the transfer rule.Two guards.A healer.A records clerk.One kitchen worker carrying supplies towards the old family shelter.And a young maintenance wolf who had been found beside the inner grille with the locking pin already removed.Darius wanted the corridor sealed.Ezra agreed.From a military position, they were right.I could hear the wounded still moving towards us through the pack link.One stretcher.Then another.A frightened child somewhere near the central shelter asking why his mother had not come back yet.If we shut everything, we protected the centre of Black Moon Ridge.We also trapped people who had done nothing except follow the rules.Ezra’s voice reached me privately through the link.I can send another pair inside.I looked towards the eastern windows even though he was nowhere near them.N
Harwick’s next report gave us nothing.Runner still moving west. No confirmed second contact.Darius answered through the link.Keep watching. Do not close distance.Victor had Vivian’s answer.We still did not know what he intended to do with it.I had barely finished thinking that when another voice cut through the pack link.Alpha. Lower court transfer just activated.Darius looked up from the map.“Who ordered it?”A pause.Nobody.Vivian was already moving.“That is impossible.”The guard answered.Four interior guards have left second hall for infirmary escort. Two reserves are moving from the central shelter to cover the old family shelter.Vivian reached the duty slate before anyone else.“Those are automatic transfers.”Ezra pushed himself upright from the chair.“Why?”“Medical overflow and shelter release.”She scanned the page.“If the infirmary requests additional escort while one of the protected shelters reports stable capacity, the nearest available internal guards red
“He gave me an order.”Nobody answered immediately.Vivian looked back at the page.Then she carried it to the smaller table where Harwick had left the old emergency books.“I’m answering him.”Maren moved beside her.“You do not owe him an answer.”“No.”Vivian opened the first book.“But he expects one.”Darius came around the table.“You think we can use that.”“I know we can use part of it.”She turned Victor’s letter over and pointed to the small code beneath his seal.“The meeting instruction is for me. This is for the relay.”Harwick leaned over the page.“The return route?”“The first stage of it.”Vivian pulled another book from the stack and opened it near the middle.“These codes were used when an emergency message passed through more than one collection point. The recipient replied through the same system, but the first return location was fixed.”Ezra frowned.“So whoever collects her answer gives us another point in his network.”“Possibly another person,” Vivian said. “
“Victor contacted her directly.”That got me dressed faster than any alarm had.I pulled my shirt over my head and found my boots while Ezra reached for his. He moved more carefully than he had before Harwick knocked. The bandage around his ribs had survived our attempt at forgetting the war for half an hour, but only just.Harwick waited in the corridor.“How?” Ezra asked.“Written message. It came through one of the old emergency relays.”My hands stopped on the laces.“Inside the pack house?”“Inside Black Moon territory,” Harwick said. “That is all we know yet.”Of course it was.Victor had lost his magic.He had not lost every door he had spent years building.We followed Harwick to the small operations room off the main hall.Darius stood over a map covered in stones and marked strips of paper. Maren was beside him. Vivian stood at the other end of the table with a folded page in front of her.She looked composed.Too composed.I knew that version of her. It was the one that app
I found Ezra in the old guard room beside the infirmary.Alive.Upright.Bleeding.The first two mattered more than the third.He sat on the edge of a narrow cot while a healer wrapped a bandage around his ribs. His shirt lay beside him, dark with blood and dirt. A cut crossed the upper part of his chest, and bruising had already started beneath his ribs.Luca stood near the door.Ezra looked up the moment I entered.His eyes moved over me.Head.Shoulders.Arms.Legs.Checking.I realised I was doing exactly the same thing.“You’re hurt.”“So are you.”“Mine is mostly old.”“Mine is mostly inconvenient.”The healer pulled the bandage tighter.Ezra stopped talking.Good.I liked her.“You stay here for ten minutes,” she said.“I need to get back east.”“You need to avoid tearing that open.”“I can do both.”“No.”Luca looked at me.“Your problem now.”“Coward.”“Alive coward.”He followed the healer out before Ezra could object.The door closed.For the first time since Darius declare
Maren and I had barely reached the family corridor when the pack link broke apart again.South passage. Move them now.Another voice cut across it.Lower east breach. Infirmary receiving passage exposed.Then three more wolves tried to speak at once.I stopped walking.Fear hit first.Children crying behind a closed door. A woman trying to keep her voice steady. Someone asking whether the old family shelter was still secure.Then another thread.Quieter.Pain.A healer breathing too fast.A man who was not saying anything at all.Maren looked at me.“What are you hearing?”Not what should we do.What was I hearing?I shut my eyes for half a second and reached.The frightened voices from the old family shelter were loud enough to drown everything else.Aurora? We were told to move. The west corridor is closed. Where do we go?I found the woman who had spoken.Where are you now?Inside the old family shelter. Twelve adults. Six children.“Stay there.”Maren was already watching me.“The







