Mag-log inBENJAMIN’S POVAlice passed close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed mine, then went down the row of light switches one after another, steady as she's been through six weeks of nothing but bad hours. I followed her out and waited on the step while she locked up.The walk up to the house was quiet. I kept my pace to hers, my body turned a little toward her, my eyes on the dark between the buildings the whole way. She didn't argue about any of it. She never once told me she could look after herself.I spent the whole walk waiting for her to change her mind — to stop at the crossroads and cut toward her own house, tell me she'd thought better of it. She did neither.The guards at the front door stepped aside as we came up the steps. I took her through the corridors, past the council chamber, past my office— neither of us turned a head toward it — past the hallway to my own floor, to a door she could have found blindfolded.Her old room.I opened it and stepped back out of her way."
Alice’s POV After they left I stood in the empty clinic a minute, then walked back to my office and shut the door behind me.The pouch was on the desk where I'd left it, next to the lamp.Pale cotton, two knots in the cord, the second one tied crooked over the first. Benjamin put it into my hand on my own doorstep the night they sentenced her, and he closed my fingers over it, and he told me he'd been carrying it since the night John's test results came back.I picked it up and held it in my palm.The lavender inside it is nearly finished. You can still find a trace if you hold it close and breathe in, but in another month there'll be nothing left, and it'll only be a small cotton bag a nine-year-old sewed badly.I sat there holding it for a while.Lisa is lying at the bottom of that river with her bones broken, or she's dragging herself along a bank forty miles downstream with the same will that carried her through six weeks of lying to my face. Either one is possible, and nobody al
ALICE'S POVJohn was dressed and sitting on the edge of the bed when I came in, and for the first time in three weeks there was color in his face."Ready to get out of here?""More than ready." He reached for the bag Morwen had packed. "One more night looking at that ceiling and you'll have to admit me for something else."I opened his shirt and checked him one last time.Four claw lines ran across his ribs and up under the collarbone. They were closed now, pink at the edges, no heat in the skin, no sign of infection. Three weeks ago John Marlow was lying open on his own office floor with my hands inside him, and I didn't think he'd live through the night."You're healing better than you have any right to," I said. "So you're going home and you're resting. No shifts. No investigation work. No stairs you don't have to climb.""Yes, Doctor." He almost smiled. "You've told me that once or twice already.""I'll tell you again before you're out the door. I know what you're like."We packed
BENJAMIN’S POVTwo days, and we haven't found so much as a shoe.I've been in this office since dark with the same three pages in front of me and I couldn't tell you one word that's on them.I keep getting up and crossing to that window for no reason at all.Callum.Nothing came back down the link. He's been out on that river since first light and he answers me when he has something, not before.I already knew what it was going to be.I've known since the moment the alarm went up, and I'll tell you exactly where I was standing when it did, because I'm going to be carrying that for the rest of my life.I was at the clinic.I'd gone down there to say a thing to Alice Watson that I'd been putting off for six weeks. I was close enough to knock.Then forty warriors' worth of panic came through the link at once. I turned around and ran. I never said it. I still haven't.That's what I got for it. That's what granting a dying woman one hour cost me.Footsteps in the corridor.A knock, and Cal
LISA'S POVThey gave me an hour with my daughter, and the sun was already dropping when we started up the hill.Two of the female guards walked close enough to catch me if I ran. Four more moved through the trees on either side. Callum stayed out front and let me walk on my own feet instead of somebody's arm. He'd fought this — I'd heard him through the door, making his case to whoever would still listen — and now he wouldn't look at me.We passed the stalls, shuttered early. The training ground stood empty, the young ones sent inside so none of them would have to watch a woman walk to her grave.Nine years I'd known that road. I'd be dead on it before the light cleared the treetops.The cemetery climbs the slope above the compound, oldest stones at the bottom, newest higher up. Cora Maren's sat four rows below my daughter's, plain, her name and her dates and nothing under them, the ground still sunk in the middle where it hadn't finished settling. I had to walk past it to reach Lily.
BENJAMIN’S POVDawn broke over Blue Moon on the sixth day. The Alpha House was unusually quiet. No patrol reports waiting on my desk. No council members moving through the corridors. No guards speaking in low voices outside my door. The whole compound seemed to be holding its breath.I stood in my office reviewing the Council’s written judgment one final time. The execution was scheduled for sunset, in accordance with pack law. Every step had been documented. Every witness heard. Every piece of evidence examined. The process had been fair.I read Lisa final judgment again. Fourth time. Every step documented, every witness heard, the evidence carried into that chamber and weighed in front of five elders.It was fair. That's all I had, and I turned it over until I was sure there was nothing else in it worth holding. So I signed it.The pen worked fine when I put down my final signature. My hand didn't shake once.You expect a thing like that to feel like something. It doesn't.A knock.
ALICE’S POVThe days that followed had a rhythm I didn’t trust.Benjamin came every morning. He actually sat at the table — something I still hadn’t gotten used to — and ate whatever I put in front of him. He returned every evening and stayed until Lucian’s eyes drifted shut.Four mornings in a row
ALICE’S POVBy the time I walked into the hospital room, I had composed myself completely. My face was set.Lucian was awake, sitting up in bed. His face brightened the moment he saw me."Mommy. You came back.""I came back." I lifted him into my arms. He smelled like baby shampoo, antiseptic, and
ALICE’S POVI should have taken Lucian home.I should have picked him up, carried him away from this festival of false joy and false hope, and tucked him into bed with a story, a kiss, and a promise that tomorrow would be better.But I didn’t. Because Lucian wanted to see the fireworks. And I could
ALICE’S POVThe Blue Moon Festival was Lucian’s idea of heaven and my four-year plan of endurance.He’d been talking about it for weeks—the lanterns, the fireworks, the honey cakes from the booth near the stage. When he’d asked, he’d pressed both hands together like he was praying, eyes wide, and I







