The Silver Ridge letter arrived on the eighth morning.

I wasn't in the pack house to see it, but I heard about it from Tess before noon. She came to the outbuilding with a bundle of stale bread and a mug of tea I hadn't asked for, and she lingered in the doorway long enough to whisper what she'd overheard while restocking the study.

"Alpha Garrett suspended the trade," she said. "Grain, textiles, all of it. He said something about—about clarification of treaty continuity."

I nodded slowly. I'd expected it faster. Garrett was a careful man; he'd wanted confirmation before he moved.

"Roland yelled," Tess added, eyes wide. "He made Grant draft a response right there. Grant used the records from the archive. But the reply came back within the hour."

"What did it say?"

She swallowed. "That the clause Roland cited was a verbal amendment. Eighteen months ago. Not written down."

I closed my eyes. I remembered that negotiation. A cold afternoon in Silver Ridge's western study, Garrett's Luna pouring tea while I walked her Alpha through the shipping schedule line by line. Roland had been hunting that day. He'd told me to handle it.

He'd told me to handle everything.

"He has no answer," Tess said. "Grant looked—Grant looked frightened."

"Grant should look frightened," I said. "He's the only one in that room who understands what's happening."

She left the bread and the tea and slipped away before anyone could notice her absence. I sat on the cot for a long time, the mug cooling in my hands, and let myself feel it—just for a moment. The small, cold satisfaction of a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward exactly where I'd meant them to.

Then I set the mug down and got back to work.

---

The message came at dusk.

A she-wolf named Marla brought it—one of the older pack members, neutral enough that Roland must have trusted her not to editorialize. She stood on the outbuilding step and read from a folded card, her voice careful.

"Alpha Roland requests a private meeting this evening. To discuss the care of former Alpha Amos. He asks for—" she hesitated, "—a truce, for the sake of his parents."

Inside me, my wolf stirred. Not fully—she'd been half-dead since the rejection—but a small, hot ripple of warning, like a hand tightening around my ribs.

*Trap.*

I knew. Of course I knew. Roland didn't offer truces. Roland offered performances of truces, and only when he wanted something.

But I'd seen Amos that morning. Faye had come at dawn with her hands shaking so hard she'd nearly spilled the dried moonroot from the cloth bag. His wolf had gone quiet in the night, she said. His breathing was shallow. The doses I could smuggle her weren't enough anymore, and we both knew it.

If there was any chance—any chance—Roland would restore my access to the infirmary, I couldn't refuse.

"Tell him I'll come," I said.

Marla nodded and left.

I turned back into the outbuilding and knelt on the floor. The loose plank came up easily under my fingers. I set the warded containers deeper into the cavity beneath—the recording crystal, the sealed intelligence, the emergency moonroot I couldn't afford to lose—and pressed the plank back down. I scattered dust over the seam. I stood.

I took nothing with me but the small pouch of dried moonroot I always carried, tucked into the inner lining of my coat.

Whatever happened tonight, I would not walk in unarmed.

---

The dining room had been set for two.

Candles. Actual candles, in silver holders I recognized from Faye's cabinet. A tablecloth I'd never seen. Roasted lamb, roasted potatoes, a dish of roasted carrots glazed with something sweet. The whole spread was elaborate in a way that felt wrong the moment I stepped through the door—Roland didn't cook, Roland didn't arrange, Roland didn't light candles for anyone.

He was already seated. He rose when I entered, which was another wrong thing.

"Sutton." His voice was soft. He pulled out the chair across from him. "Thank you for coming."

I sat. I kept my hands in my lap.

"I've been unfair," he said. He didn't quite meet my eyes. "Whatever happens between us, my father shouldn't suffer for it. I want to talk about how we manage his care going forward."

"I'm listening."

He poured wine from a decanter into two glasses. Deep red, almost black in the candlelight. He slid one across to me.

"A toast," he said. "To my father's health."

Refusing would tell him I knew. Refusing would end the meeting before I learned what he wanted, before I learned whether the infirmary access was real. I picked up the glass.

I took the smallest sip I could manage without it looking like a sip at all.

"Tell me your terms," I said, setting the glass down.

Roland began to talk. Something about schedules, something about supervised visits, something about the pack's image and the elders' concerns. I listened with half my attention. The other half was tracking my own body—the taste on my tongue, the warmth spreading through my chest, the faint sweetness at the back of my throat that shouldn't have been there.

I took a second sip because he was watching, because not drinking now would be the tell.

It hit within minutes.

My wolf—the small, warm presence that had been coiled and waiting in my chest since the rejection—went silent. Not quiet. *Silent.* Like a candle blown out. Like a door slammed on a room and locked from the outside. The absence was so sudden and so total that I stopped hearing whatever Roland was saying.

The candlelight blurred. The edges of the tablecloth softened. My hands, still folded in my lap, felt very far away.

I tried to stand.

My legs didn't answer. My arms didn't answer. I gripped the edge of the table and my fingers slid off it, boneless.

Across from me, Roland set down his own glass, untouched, and smiled.

"Camryn," he said, not raising his voice. "She's ready."

Somewhere behind me, a door opened.

I woke to the smell of sweat and stale cologne.

The ceiling above me was unfamiliar. Not the outbuilding's rough planks. Not the pack house infirmary. A guest room, I realized slowly, one of the ones near the eastern wing that Roland kept for visiting dignitaries. The bed beneath me was too soft. Someone else's weight pressed against my side.

I tried to move. My arms didn't answer. My legs were dead weight, pinned under blankets I didn't remember pulling over myself. My wolf—I reached for her instinctively, the way you reach for a light switch in the dark—and found nothing. Not silence. Absence. Like the space where she'd been had been scooped out and filled with cotton.

Wolfsbane.

The realization came slow, filtered through the haze still clinging to my thoughts. Not the diluted kind Camryn had used on herself. The real thing. Concentrated enough to smother my wolf completely and leave my body paralyzed.

I turned my head. It took effort. The motion felt like dragging something heavy through mud.

A man lay beside me. Shirtless. Dark hair, stubbled jaw, a scar running along his collarbone. I'd never seen him before. Rogue, my mind supplied distantly. Had to be. No pack wolf would risk crossing Ironvale's border for this.

A camera flash exploded from somewhere near the door.

I flinched—or tried to. My body barely twitched. The light burned white across my vision, then faded, leaving afterimages dancing in the dark.

"Make sure the elders see these before dawn." Roland's voice. Muffled by the door but unmistakable. Calm. Satisfied. Like he was discussing patrol schedules.

Footsteps retreated down the hall. Two sets. Roland and whoever had been holding the camera.

The rogue beside me stirred. He sat up slowly, running a hand through his hair, and reached for his shirt on the floor. He didn't look at me. Didn't speak. He dressed in silence, pulled on his boots, and walked out. The door clicked shut behind him.

I lay in the dark and counted my breaths.

One. Two. Three.

The photographs existed now. They were already moving through the pack house, already being delivered to the elders who would convene the tribunal. By dawn, every ranked wolf in Ironvale would have seen them. Sutton Hayes, rejected Luna, caught in bed with a rogue male. Proof of infidelity. Proof of disloyalty. Proof that Roland's rejection had been justified all along.

Four. Five. Six.

I had hours. Not days. The tribunal would be called as soon as the sun rose. Roland wouldn't wait. He'd want this finished while the images were fresh, while the shock was still sharp enough to override questions.

Seven. Eight.

My fingers twitched. Just barely. The wolfsbane was metabolizing. Slow, but steady. I focused on my right hand, willing the numbness to recede, and after what felt like an eternity, my thumb moved.

Nine. Ten.

I started planning.

---

By the time I could stand, the sky outside the window had shifted from black to deep gray. Pre-dawn. I had maybe an hour before the pack house stirred.

I pulled myself upright, gripping the bedpost for balance. My legs shook. My wolf was still gone, that hollow absence in my chest making every movement feel wrong, like I was operating a body that didn't quite belong to me anymore.

I crossed to the door. It opened easily under my hand.

Unlocked.

Of course it was. Roland didn't need to keep me trapped. The photographs were the trap. Let me run, let me protest, let me scream—it wouldn't matter. The evidence existed. That was all he needed.

I walked through the empty corridors, past the common room where the first light was starting to seep through the windows, past the kitchens where I could hear the faint clatter of early prep. No one stopped me. No one even looked.

The outbuilding door was still ajar from where I'd left it the night before. I slipped inside, dropped to my knees beside the loose plank, and pried it up with shaking hands.

The warded containers were exactly where I'd hidden them. The recording crystal. The sealed intelligence. The emergency moonroot wrapped in oilcloth.

I pulled them all out and set them on the cot. Then I reached for the thin silver chain around my neck—the one piece of jewelry I'd never taken off, even after the rejection—and unclasped it. Threaded onto the chain was a small communication stone, keyed to Faye's matching one. I'd given it to her years ago, back when Amos's condition first started declining and we needed a way to coordinate his care without Roland overhearing.

I pressed my thumb to the stone's surface and pushed a single thought through the link.

*I need you. Now. Bring Amos's journal.*

The stone warmed briefly under my touch, then went still. Message sent.

I sat on the cot and waited.

---

Faye arrived within the hour.

She came alone, a worn leather journal clutched to her chest, her face pale and drawn. She didn't knock. She pushed the door open and stepped inside, and the moment she saw me—sitting on the cot, the warded containers spread out beside me—her expression cracked.

"Sutton." Her voice broke on my name. "I heard. The photographs. Roland's calling a tribunal at noon."

"I know."

"He's going to strip you of everything. Pack membership. Protection. He'll cast you out as rogue."

"I know," I said again. "That's why I called you."

I picked up the recording crystal and held it out to her. The warding shimmered faintly in the dim light.

"This is everything," I said. "Camryn's confession about the fake rogue attack. Roland's orders to drug me last night. The staged photographs. All of it."

Faye stared at the crystal. Her hands tightened on the journal.

"You recorded them."

"I've been recording them for weeks." I set the crystal down and met her eyes. "I knew this was coming. I just didn't know when."

She sank onto the cot beside me, the journal balanced on her knees. For a long moment, she said nothing. Then she opened the journal and turned it toward me.

Amos's handwriting filled the pages. Neat, careful entries dating back years. Every dose of moonroot I'd given him. Every treatment. Every improvement. Dates, effects, observations. A record of gratitude Roland had never known existed.

"He kept this," Faye said quietly. "Every single dose. He wanted to remember."

My throat tightened. I swallowed hard and forced the words out.

"The tribunal will need to hear from you. Both of you. If Amos can stand—"

"He'll stand." Faye's voice was steel. "Even if it kills him, he'll stand."

She looked at me, and something in her face shifted. Not grief. Not guilt. Decision.

"Tell me what you need me to do," she said.

So I told her.