News travels like sparks when the straw is dry.

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By the time we stepped into the square–Francesco two paces left of me, our hands not quite touching. Audrey a shadow where shadows love to rest, Marlow nowhere and everywhere–people already lined the edges Julius stood with Bethany. Monica, arms crossed, head high. Maria had imed the base of the well and installed a tray there, because no speech should be given on an empty throat, even if the throat belongs to a fool.

The three Alphas chose their positions with care. None near the other. None close enough to look like allies. none far enough to look like cowards. I knew two by sight–Lemaitre, who dressed like money that didn’t know how to be ashamed, and Bourdon, who always looked like he’d been interrupted at the worst moment of his favorite story. The third had the tight mouth of a man who had taught himself to love not having to tell the truth.

Dorian did note.

Of course ihe /ididn’t. He was too seasoned to put his body where scaffolding might pout.

Lemaitre raised a hand that held no callus. “King Francesco,” he called, voice pitched for a stage. “Our condolences. We heard of your Luna’s… ident.”

How….?

Beside me, Francesco’s breath smoothed out like a man deciding where to set his weight. “You heard wrong,” he said, pleasant as a chair. “It was not an ident.”

I stepped forward before Lemaitre could process the bait. “It was a gift,” I told them. “A sweet one. Brought by kind hands and dirt under fingernails. And then someone added bitterness to it because they were afraid of how sweet can move a city.”

Bourdon half–snorted. “Sweet. Is that what you call it when your king almost burns down a garden?”

I blinked “What… He didn’t,” I said.

“He roared!!” He correct me like he was there at that time.

I smile “He breathes,” I said, equally factual. “So do you, I presume.”

A ripple ofughter. Not derisive. Relieved. It’s remarkable how often people will let go of fear if you hand them something useful to hold in its ce.

Lemaitre recovered quickly. “The concern is that the Lycan King is…promised.” He said the word with the delicacy of a man stepping around a puddle in good shoes. “That his Luna–no insult–presents a risk to his judgment. That someone could use affection to lead this territory into peril.”

“Affection,” Iment. “A treacherous thing. Bread. nkets. Night watches shared so the old sleep and the children dream.” I cocked my head. “Is it peril if men eat? I’m new to thenguage you speak.”

Even Bourdon’s mouth twitched.

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The tight–mouthed Alpha tightened further.

Francescoid a hand on the well’s stone, a gesture as casual as it was deliberate. “My Luna does not weaken me,” he said. “She makes me inconvenient to the men who prefer a king they can frighten in private and praise in public.”

Lemaitre’s eyes slid to where our fingers nearly touched. “So this is what you’ve be–domestic.

He shook his head “I am alive,” Francesco said proudly. “You might try it.”

A murmur rose, honest, not choreographed.

The elders nodded without deciding to.

A child waved at me from behind Maria’s skirt and dropped a crust in the excitement.

The tight–mouthed Alpha stepped forward atst. “We did note to trade jokes,” he said. “We came because this territory has a history of… idents. Lakes swallowing girls. Rogues swallowing borders. And now, poison in pies.”

“Cakes,” Maria corrected, scandalized.

Ehm… Cakes,” he amended with martyrdom. “What assurance have we that your household is not alreadypromised? That your council holds? That your walls aren’t speaking to men like Dorian–men who seek order?”

I smiled. It wasn’t particrly kind.

“Dorian and order fit in a sentence only if you add a negative. But let me answer the part of your question worth answering.” I lifted a finger, and the square quieted the way it has learned to. “Yes. We havepromised walls.” I let the truth sit. “They werepromised before I came. Old cracks. New holes. People who listened to the wrong mouths because the right ones had been closed for too long. We are mending. With bread andw. With soldiers who can count and elders who know how to say no even to kings. If you want a guarantee, pick a god and ask them to give you one. I have only work to offer.”

Work. Itnded in the square like a tool someone had been seeking and finally found.

Lemaitre opened his hands. “Very stirring. And yet… we heard you keep a woman–Isolde-”

“-in your strongest ward, Even though she was known to made mistake” Bourdon finished for him, unable to resist the taste of scandal. “Doesn’t look likew to me. Looks like a leverage you are not entitled to hold.”

“Come,” I said, before Francesco could growl. “I’ll show you.”

The air shifted. They had expected denial, not invitation.

We walked.

Not a procession–those belong to men who hide what they mean to reveal.

Just a gathering of legs and eyes, moving as one toward the house my mate had decided would be a hearth or

nothing

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Francesco kept pace with me. I felt his pride, his temper, his low, steady readiness like a second pulse.

Audrey flowed ahead to clear corners.

Marlow drified beside Bourdon and said something that made the Alphaugh against his own will.

Lemaitre adjusted his cuffs, then adjusted them again, as if the thread might answer better than I would.

The ward smelled of rosemary, iron, and the kind of order only women can keep when men forget to be careful.

Monica stood at the foot of the first bed, charts in hand, gaze cool as a clean de.

Lira had taken the window. She did not bow.

Isolde was not in chains. She was upright, sleeves rolled, wringing out a cloth, her beauty a little less terrifying in the good light. She looked at me, then at Francesco, then at the Alphas, and for a second–only one–she smiled. Not for them. For the sport. Because she know what is this.

“This is your dungeon?” Lemaitre said.

“This is where we keep people alive, I already show to othe Alpha too.” I told him softly. “Men in dungeons get dramatic. Women in wards tell the truth out of boredom.”

It broke augh from too many throats for Lemaitre’sfort.

Bourdon peered, greedily polite. “She looks well.”

“She is,” Monica said. “She is also watched. She has asked for honey and received gruel. She has asked for razors and received patience. She has asked for the King and received the Luna. She is alive because we decided knowing things is more useful than burying them.”

Lemaitre shifted his weight. “And has she told you anything… useful?”

Ha..!

Isolde opened her mouth with the hunger of a woman who hears her cue, but I lifted a hand without looking

at her.

“Yes,” I said, eyes on Lemaitre. “Enough.”

He bristled. “Enough for what?”

Are we curious? I try to notugh watching him and keep my neutral face.

“Enough…. To keep you safe,” I finally said. “From your own curiosity.”

Lira coughed. Well… It might have been augh.

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We did not linger.

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We let them see a ward that smelled likew and a woman whose eyes held the story of her own undoing.

We let them carry back to Dorian the image of a Luna who does not flinch and a king who does not show his teeth until he needs them for more than scaring children.

Back in the square, the light had shifted gold.

Frances, the mason whose hands I trust with corners, had climbed the well to fix a nail that did not need it; I smiled up at him and he grinned down at me like a man who likes the job gravity keeps giving him.

Lemaitre cleared his throat, thin, and reached for anotherce of rumor. “The Lycaon name has always…” He stopped, because the crowd had begun to turn, not against him, but toward the stalls where Maria had decided it was time for juice and the call of real life had eclipsed the performance.

He tried again, louder. “The Lycaon line—”

“Will answer for itself,” I said firmly. “Tomorrow. When the elders and children gather. You are wee to listen if you can keep quiet.”

He shut his mouth on a retort that would have made him look small.

Bourdon, to his credit, nodded with genuine curiosity.

The tight–mouthed Alpha nced toward the road as if measuring how long it would take a horse to leave.

I almost felt sorry for him. fnceb5 Discover more novels at find·novel/fnceb5

Well… Almost.