The meeting parlor had seen better days.

  Last time Alpha had been here, the room had felt almost peaceful. Old stone walls, shelves lined with temple ledgers and dog-eared storybooks, a clay brazier in the corner, the faint smoke of incense curling through the air as Ann poured his group tea and Sister Audrea grilled them for answers after the attack on the temple.

  Tonight, the incense had burned down to ash, the brazier cold. Papers lay scattered across the nearest table, knocked aside and or left sitting where priests and scribes had left them when the alarm had sounded. The single spirit lamp overhead threw hard shadows across the walls and left the corners in gloom.

  And near the entrance, Jonah thrashed.

  “Let go of me!” he roared, voice cracked and hoarse. His back arched against the polished floorboards, boots slipping on the rug as he tried to buck free.

  Garrelt had both arms wrapped around Jonah’s shoulders, bracing his weight like he was trying to pin a bull. Hugo straddled the boy’s legs near the knees, teeth bared in a grimace, every muscle taut. Even with Garrelt’s low Shackle Breaking cultivation and Hugo’s wiry strength, they slid a handspan every time Jonah heaved.

  “Not till you calm down, kid!” Garrelt barked. Sweat beaded along his brow. Each jerk from Jonah came with a burst of power that shouldn’t have belonged to someone his age and cultivation — a stuttering surge that made the adventurer’s grip slip an inch before he locked it again.

  The faint azure glow threading beneath Jonah’s skin brightened as he fought. Nanites answered his panic with more strength. His boots scraped hard enough against the floor to leave scuffs. Tiles cracked.

  “They took her!” Jonah spat, voice cracking as he twisted under the two men’s weight. “They took her, and we’re sitting here talking—”

  Across from them, Maggy stepped into his line of sight.

  “Jonah!” she snapped. “Look at me.”

  He did, if only for the chance to aim his fury somewhere.

  “You can’t just run straight into an obvious trap! That’s exactly what they want,” Maggy said, her voice cutting through his own.

  “What other choice do we have?!” Jonah bucked again. Garrelt swore as Jonah’s shoulder slipped free for half a breath, only to clamp back down and push him back down. Hugo leaned harder across Jonah’s arms, jaw tight, teeth gritted as he fought for leverage.

  “You’ll die, you idiot!” Maggy shot back, her words sharper than the anger behind them. “Or they’ll take you too, and still have her. Then what?”

  Jonah’s breath came in ragged bursts. He craned his head, straining to see her past Garrelt’s arm, eyes red and burning. “So we just leave her? Is that it?” he choked. “We leave her with them while you all sit around and—”

  “No one said that,” Bartholomew cut in.

  He stepped forward from his place near the end of the table, his voice calm in a way only years dealing with the younger orphanage children could teach. “All we’re saying is we need a plan first.”

  Jonah didn’t answer, just redoubled his struggle. One heel slammed into the floor hard enough to rattle the table nearest the wall.

  Hugo’s arms trembled with the effort of holding him. “Kid, I swear,” the man panted, “you’re going to break something — and it’s probably going to be me.”’

  Maggy’s gaze flicked away from Jonah’s face, past Garrelt’s strained shoulders, to the small metal shape perched on the central table. The [Wasp] drone sat among the scattered papers and empty teacups, watching the scene impassively.

  “Mr. Alpha!” she said. “Do something!”

  For a heartbeat, nothing happened.

  Then the drone’s optics brightened. It tilted its head by a fraction, as if exhaling.

  A sigh crackled through its speaker. “Sorry, I was busy. I guess I should.”

  Azure lines erupted across Jonah’s body.

  They flared beneath his skin in sharp, circuit-like patterns, racing down his arms, across his spine, around his ribs. The glow seared through his shirt, casting pale blue across Garrelt and Hugo’s hands.

  Jonah gasped.

  The strength in his limbs vanished as if someone had cut a cord. His muscles went slack, head dropping forward to thump against the floor. Garrelt and Hugo felt the resistance vanish, and nearly toppled forward as Jonah’s weight sagged beneath them.

  The room exhaled with them.

  “Stars,” Hugo breathed, rolling off to one side and shaking out his arms. Sweat beaded along his hairline. “Warn a man next time.”

  Garrelt sat back, flexing his fingers. “I’m gettin’ too old for this,” he muttered.

  “It’s fine now,” Alpha said. The [Wasp] hopped off the ledgers and drifted closer. “You two can get up.”

  The men exchanged a look — not quite convinced — but shrugged and stood.

  Jonah moved with them.

  The azure lines didn’t fade. They held like a thin second skin, pulsing faintly at his joints. He rose in one smooth, unnatural motion. His breathing remained harsh, but there was no tremor in his limbs.

  When he turned to face the others, however, his face was anything but calm.

  Rage burned there — raw and betrayed, crowded in with fear that had nowhere to go. His jaw clenched so hard that a muscle jumped in his cheek. His eyes locked on the [Wasp].

  “You said you wouldn’t control me like this,” he growled.

  The [Wasp] rotated on its little legs to face him more squarely. “No,” Alpha replied, voice even. “I said I wouldn’t as long as you weren’t a danger to yourself or others.” A beat. “I believe this qualifies.”

  Jonah’s fingers twitched. His shoulders bunched as he tried to step forward, yet didn’t.

  His breath hitched. The fury in his eyes stuttered into frustration as he realized his body no longer belonged entirely to him. He strained again, hard enough that a vein stood out at his temple, but his heel stayed rooted to the floor.

  On the far side of the table, Dr. Maria let out a slow breath and sank back into her chair. She’d shed her healer’s coat, but the faint smudges of salve and blood at her cuffs hadn’t entirely been washed away.

  “That said,” she said, folding her hands atop the table, “he does bring up a fair point.”

  Attention swung toward her. The [Wasp] drifted back a little, giving the humans space.

  “What are we going to do?”

  Silence stretched for an uncomfortable moment while everyone returned to their seats.

  Garrelt dragged a hand down his face, fingers scraping through his beard. He dropped into the nearest chair with a dull thump and tilted his head back until it rested against the wall. “I’ve already contacted Yon,” he said, voice rough. “Luckily, I was already in the guild hall when Alpha called me.”

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  Maggy sat down beside him, arms hugging a cushion to her chest like a shield. “And?” she asked.

  Garrelt grimaced. “And it seems they’re one step ahead of us.” He lowered his head again, meeting each of their eyes. “The Guild got a sudden rush of ‘emergency requests’ from some very shiny names last night. Noble caravans needing escorts, sect brats wanting guards for ‘urgent training trips’ — you know the type. Most of our A-rank teams have already been pulled out of the city.”

  “Meaning?” Bartholomew asked, brow furrowing.

  “Meaning,” Garrelt said, “Anyone strong enough to take on Icefinger’s people head-on is currently playing bodyguard for some noble brat on the far side of the range.”

  Bartholomew’s frown deepened, the familiar lines of worry digging in around his mouth. “They still have that much pull?” he asked quietly.

  Garrelt lifted one shoulder. “Or they called in a lot of favors all at once. Doesn’t really matter which. The result’s the same.”

  For a few moments, only the soft tick of the parlor clock and the distant murmur of temple life filtered through the door.

  “So we’re on our own,” Dr. Maria said.

  It wasn’t a question.

  “Not entirely,” Maggy said. “The temple will support us as far as they’re able. But they can’t risk pulling too many of their Golden Spirits away from the grounds — not so soon after the attack.” She adjusted her glasses, the lamplight catching on the lenses.

  Garrelt raised an eyebrow. “Doesn’t the North Temple have Second Greater Realm forces on staff?”

  Maggy shook her head. “Not right now. I asked as soon as it became clear Sister Audrea was taken. All I got was that they’re ‘currently unavailable.’ They wouldn’t say much more, since I’m not part of the temple anymore… but talking to some kids, most of the senior clergy vanished around the same time the refugees started pouring in from the Radiant Sea.”

  Bartholomew’s fist slammed on the table. “Always knew we couldn’t rely on those pompous bastards.” Then, looking around the room, “Do we even know where they have her?”

  For a heartbeat, no one spoke.

  Jonah stood a little apart from the table, his body from the neck down still locked in the faint blue net of Alpha’s control.

  “Alpha does,” he said through gritted teeth. His eyes never left the drone — grief and accusation knotted tight around the thin thread of certainty. “Don’t you?”

  Every head turned toward the drone.

  Alpha didn’t answer right away.

  The [Wasp] hovered just above the table, optic a steady red ember. For a heartbeat, two, three, the only sound in the parlor was the tick of the wall clock and Jonah’s ragged breathing.

  “You can’t tell me you don’t,” Jonah said finally.

  The words came out low and rough. His shoulders were still locked in the azure lattice, his boots rooted where Alpha had left them, but his eyes burned. “Not after everything you’ve taught me. After everything you’ve shown. I know you’ve been keeping track of everyone.”

  The accusation hung there.

  Alpha could have dodged. He didn’t.

  “…You’re right,” he said. “I do know.”

  Hugo swore under his breath. Maggy drew in a quick, sharp breath, clutching the cushion harder. Bartholomew’s fingers went still where they’d been fidgeting with the edge of a ledger.

  “Then let’s go get her back!” Jonah snapped.

  This time it was a shout, half demand, half plea. The words cracked in his throat. The faint lines under his skin flared once as if trying to answer him, then settled back into their steady pulse when the control routines held.

  Alpha’s response was immediate. “No.”

  Jonah flinched like he’d been struck. “No?”

  “It isn’t that simple,” Alpha said.

  Dr. Maria’s chair creaked softly as she sat up straighter. “Explain,” she said. There was no edge in her voice, only clean expectation.

  The [Wasp] drifted a little higher, wings humming as if Alpha were adjusting his thoughts along with its altitude. When he spoke again, the lightness had gone from his tone. What remained was precise, clipped.

  “This wasn’t like the ambush at the shop,” he said. “Or the first temple attack with mid-tier hired thugs and overconfident Golden Spirits. Sister Audrea is currently in the custody of not one, but two of Icefinger’s direct lieutenants.”

  He paused just long enough for the information to settle.

  “Both of whom,” he added, “are operating at the same realm as Magnus.”

  The room froze. Even the old clock on the wall seemed to hesitate.

  Maggy’s breath hitched. Hugo swore under his breath. Bartholomew’s knuckles went white where his hands clenched on the table’s edge. Even Garrelt’s eyes widened in concern.

  The color bled slowly from Jonah’s face as his anger froze in his veins. He had heard rumors of Magnus Ironheart before. Everyone in Halirosa had. More importantly, Alpha had shown him what it had taken to stop the man. Now, if what Alpha said was the truth, two people of that level had Sister Audrea.

  His mouth moved, but nothing came out.

  Dr. Maria drew in a deep breath, then slowly exhaled. Her fingers laced together on the tabletop. “You’re certain?” she asked.

  “As certain as I can be without shoving a sensor down their throats,” Alpha replied. “Their signatures are… loud. It’s not something I imagine can be easily faked.”

  Garrelt dragged a hand down his face, stubble rasping against his palm. “Hold on,” he said. “I thought you couldn’t track Icefinger’s inner circle. That was the entire problem — they’re too strong, too careful. How do you know it’s them this time?”

  “I still can’t track them directly,” Alpha said. “That’s part of why Kira could slip through my net and take Audrea in the first place.” The slight note of bitterness in his voice was replaced with a hint of amusement. “However… they made a mistake.”

  Dr. Maria’s eyes narrowed. “What kind of mistake?”

  “The kind I’d expect from people who’ve spent their lives dealing with spiritual threats, not the ones I pose,” Alpha said. “They understand how to scrub spirit signatures, conceal aura traces, rotate safe houses. They understand how to dodge scrying and divination arrays. What they don’t know, is how to deal with someone like me.”

  The [Wasp] landed on the table, as if punctuating the point.

  “First, the players,” Alpha went on. “The one we’ve already suspected: Kira Shadowclaw. She doesn’t maintain a primary base of operations. No compound, no hall, no cozy den I can point at on a map. She ghosts around the city — appears where she wants, when she wants, meets her little murder squad in different locations, then vanishes again. From an assassin’s perspective, it’s very sensible. Hard to catch what never sits still. Even for me, it’s been hard to track her. Mostly, I’ve had to resort to noting which of her agents she contacts the most and keeping an eye on them, but it’s not perfect by any means.”

  Hugo grimaced. “Yeah. Sounds like her. Bosco got orders from her a couple of times. She always creeped me out.”

  “The second,” Alpha continued, “is someone my sources call Orion Swiftshadow. Information broker. Operations manager. Possibly more. She never interacts directly with anyone outside her inner staff. Orders go out through a beautifully over-engineered system of dead drops, messengers, and circular routes. I once watched one of her couriers deliver the same message to three different drop boxes in different disguises, only for them to effectively deliver it to themselves.” There was genuine appreciation in his voice.

  Garrelt blinked. “That… sounds insane.”

  “Possibly. But it’s also effective,” Alpha countered. “Every extra step scrubs another layer of traceability. By the time the order reaches the actual target, no one below the top three has any idea where it came from. She’s almost as paranoid as I am.” A beat. “Almost.”

  “Almost?” Bartholomew echoed weakly.

  Alpha’s optic brightened, amused. “Well, she still uses paper.” He spat the last word as if it were a curse.

  “Fine,” Garrelt said. “So they’re careful. We already knew that. What changed?”

  Alpha’s hum deepened, the drone settling to hover above the scattered papers as if taking its place in the center of a diagram only he could see. “What changed is that they treated Audrea like a high-risk asset.”

  Dr. Maria’s eyes sharpened. “Walk us through it.”

  “They took her shortly after I brought Jonah on patrol,” Alpha said. “From there, she was moved through four different locations over the course of the night. Each transfer was quick. Minimal dwell time. Each stop used different handlers — different teams, different routes.”

  He paused, letting his audience picture it. “At every location, they put her through what I can only describe as… decontamination.”

  Maggy grimaced. “Meaning?”

  “Arrays to strip foreign energy, suppress mental influence, and purge any external tracking techniques they’re familiar with,” Alpha said. “Isolation wards. Rotating guards. Imagine a very unpleasant spa visit designed by paranoid cultivators. The goal was to shake off any marks, curses, or scents a normal enemy might use to follow her. If they’d been dealing with anyone else, it would have worked.”

  “Would have?” Bartholomew echoed.

  Alpha’s optic glinted. “As I said, they don’t know how to deal with anything like me.”

  He laughed.

  Dr. Maria’s brow arched. “So they haven’t detected your presence?”

  “They haven’t,” Alpha said, and this time the smugness was unmistakable. “As long as I stay close to either Audrea herself or one of the staff members involved in her transfer, and I keep my signature buried under theirs, there’s nothing for their arrays to latch onto.”

  Maggy cocked her head. “Staff members,” she repeated. “You mean—”

  “Their assistants. Guards. A physician. One particularly unpleasant scribe.” The [Wasp] bobbed once. “Micro-constructs, diffused in their clothing, their hair, under their nails. When they handed her off, I simply rode the next link in the chain. To them, it’s just noise. A little extra static in a city full of it.”

  Garrelt leaned forward, elbows on his knees, eyes narrowed in thought. “All right,” he said slowly. “Say we accept that. Say you know exactly where she is and who’s guarding her. That still doesn’t tell us how we’re supposed to get her out. You just said it yourself: two Elemental Dominance monsters in the same place. Even if the temple throws in their Golden Spirits to mop up the small fry, all of us together wouldn’t match one of those, never mind two.”

  “Not in a straight fight,” Bartholomew added quietly.

  Jonah’s jaw clenched. “I don’t care how strong they are,” he said, voice hoarse but steady now. “We can’t just do nothing.”

  “You’re not wrong,” Alpha said. The [Wasp] turned slowly, optic glancing across each of them in turn. “In a fair fight, we’re outmatched on every front. We don’t have the Guild’s heavy hitters, the temple’s senior clergy are mysteriously ‘unavailable,’ and the city watch is… compromised.”

  He let the word hang for a moment.

  Then, a faint smirk crept back into his voice. “Fortunately for us, I have no intention of playing fair.”

  Hugo huffed a short laugh. “There it is.”

  Dr. Maria’s lips tugged into a small, knowing smirk. “So you do have something in mind.”

  “I do,” Alpha replied. “We’re not going to win a direct confrontation. Not yet. But we can keep them distracted long enough to do what we need to.” He paused, letting the tension coil tight around the room.

  “All we’ll need,” Alpha said, voice dropping into something almost pleased, “is a… little help from the inside.”