Chapter 33

The council convened within the hour, faster than Ivy had ever seen it move, urgency replacing the usual formal patience of pack business.

"We hide because hiding has kept us alive for four hundred years," one of the older council members said, voice sharp with fear more than anger. "One blog post doesn't change that math. We double down. We make this reporter's life difficult enough that she drops the story entirely and moves on to something easier."

"And if she doesn't drop it?" Kade asked. "If pressuring her just convinces her there's something worth digging harder for?"

"Then we handle her the old way."

"No," Kade said, flat and final. "We've been over this. I won't authorize harming a journalist for doing her job, and I won't lead a pack that thinks that's an acceptable cost of secrecy."

The hall murmured, split clearly down old lines Ivy was starting to recognize — fear on one side, something closer to fatigue with the fear on the other.

"There's a middle path," Elena said, standing, drawing every eye in the room. Ivy had grown used to her measured, careful voice over the past year, but there was something sharper in it today. "We don't confirm the full truth to the world. We also don't threaten a reporter into silence, which is exactly the kind of story that gets someone digging harder, not less. We control what one specific, principled woman is allowed to learn, on our terms, in exchange for restraint on hers."

"You want to recruit her," Odalys said. "The way you recruited the friend."

"I want to try," Elena said. "Before we default to methods this pack's spent a year trying to move past."

Kade looked to Ivy, and something in his expression asked the question before his mouth did.

"I think it's worth trying," Ivy said. "She told us herself — she wants the truth, whatever shape it takes. That's not nothing. People who just want a sensational headline don't usually say that out loud to the people they're investigating."

The vote, when it finally came, was close but decisive. Cautious engagement, not confrontation. Kade would meet Sarah Chen again, this time with something closer to honesty, and see what kind of woman was actually on the other side of that careful, patient calm.

They met her at a diner in town, neutral ground, Ivy and Kade on one side of a cracked vinyl booth, Sarah Chen on the other with her notebook already out.

"I didn't expect a second invitation," Sarah said, "given how the first conversation went."

"Things have changed since then," Kade said. "I'd like to have an honest conversation, off the record until you and I agree otherwise. Is that something you're able to offer?"

"Off the record's a professional courtesy. I can offer that." Sarah studied them both, something calculating and careful behind her eyes. "What kind of honest conversation are we talking about?"

"The kind where you stop guessing," Ivy said, "and we tell you enough of the truth that you understand why some of it can't ever be public, without you having to piece it together from land deeds and blurry photographs."

Sarah was quiet a long moment, weighing something. "I appreciate the offer. I do. But I need to be honest with you both too, since we're apparently doing that today." She closed the notebook, expression tightening. "My editor saw the blog post's traffic overnight. It went further than I expected — got picked up by two aggregator sites, generated real interest. He wants a bigger story, fast, and he's not interested in careful or principled. He used the word 'monster' in a planning meeting this morning like it was a marketing term."

Ivy's stomach dropped. "How much time do you have?"

"Forty-eight hours," Sarah said, "before he assigns someone else to run with whatever speculation's already circulating online, with or without my careful reporting attached to it." She met Ivy's eyes, something almost apologetic in her expression. "I came here hoping you'd give me something true enough to fight for the careful version of this story. I don't know if forty-eight hours is enough time for either of us to figure out what that actually looks like."