HIS WOLF TOLD ME EVERYTHING

The woman in the video had Edena Bray's face, Edena Bray's voice, and Edena Bray's favorite cream blazer. She also called the firm's biggest client "a walking tax write-off in a lace front." Edena had never said it in her life. Four million people had watched her say it anyway. "Pause it there." Edena leaned across the glass table and tapped the screen. "Look at the earring." Edwin Pike didn't look at the earring. He looked at his watch, which cost more than her car and kept worse time. "Edena." "Left ear. I've only ever worn one stud, in my right ear. And she blinks every eleven seconds like a metronome. Nobody blinks like that. It's a deepfake, Edwin. A cheap one." "I know." She sat back. "You know." "Of course I know." He finally met her eyes, and he had the decency to look tired. "It doesn't matter if it's real. It matters that it's trending." Her line. From her pitch deck. The one that had won Pike & Rowe its last three clients. Hearing it in his mouth was like watching a stranger walk out in her coat. "Belmont Foods pulled their account." He straightened his cufflinks. "Then Saria Cosmetics. Your name is on a sinking ship, and I can't bail fast enough with you inside it." "My name isn't on the door." "Exactly." A folder slid across the glass. "Severance. Two months. It's generous." Edena opened it, read the number, and closed it. "Two months' pay. After everything I built here." She tilted her head. "Including all the time I spent pretending you were a good boyfriend." Behind her, two security guards appeared outside the conference room. She stared at them, then at him. "You called security on me." "I called them *for* you. To help with your box." The box sat on the chair beside her. One succulent. A framed photo of her mother laughing in front of the laundromat. A mug that said I FIX THINGS, which, in hindsight, had been tempting fate. Edena stood, tucked the succulent under one arm, and left the mug where it was. "Keep it," she said. "You'll need the reminder." At the door, she turned back. "Edwin. Whoever made that video knew which blazer I wear to big meetings. They knew my voice well enough to clone it." She let the silence sit. "That's not a stranger." For half a second, something flickered behind his eyes. Then it was gone, and he was reaching for his phone. "Goodbye, Edena." --- Bray Wash & Fold never slept. The dryers downstairs thumped like a second heartbeat through the floor of the flat above. Madie Okonkwo was filming a nail tutorial under a ring light when Edena came through the door with a plant and no job. "Don't talk," Madie said without looking up. "I'm mid-chrome." "I got fired." "I said don't—" Madie spun on her stool, saw the succulent, and pressed a hand to her chest. "Oh, baby. They gave you a *plant*?" "I took the plant." "That's so much worse." Edena dropped onto the sofa and pulled open the side-table drawer. Behind the takeaway menus sat a small white bottle with no label. Quietroot. One tablet every morning since the night at the lake. It kept the thing inside her asleep. She shook the bottle. Nothing rattled. Her supplier, a struggling vet who asked no questions and took cash, had stopped answering texts. She'd been rationing. Half a tablet. Then a quarter. Then crumbs licked off her fingertip like a raccoon. Now there was nothing at all. Something stretched behind her ribs. Slow. Luxurious. Like a cat in sunlight, if the cat had teeth. *Hello, Cage.* Edena went very still. The voice was low and amused and wrapped in velvet. She hadn't heard it since the night at the lake. *Years,* it purred. *YEARS. Do you know what I've been eating in there? Nothing. I've been chewing on your anxiety. It tastes like cardboard and unpaid invoices.* "Not now," Edena breathed. "Not now what?" Madie squinted at her over the ring light. "Not now... chrome. Finish your chrome." "You've got the face." Madie pointed with a nail file. "The 'I left the iron on' face." *Tell her about me,* the voice whispered. *I'm delightful.* Edena's phone buzzed. Unknown number. A video. Her thumb hovered. Every instinct she'd built in her years of crisis work said *don't open things from strangers.* She opened it. Dock lights. Black water. Music thudding somewhere off-screen. In the shallows, a red wolf stood over a boy, and the water around his face was dark and spreading. Then the wolf folded in on itself. Fur pulled back into skin. Bones cracked and shortened. And a girl knelt in the lake, naked and shaking, hair plastered to her cheeks. A phone flash caught her face perfectly. A younger Edena Bray looked straight into the lens. The video ended. A message followed. **Hollis Rourke. Get inside his life. Or everyone meets your wolf.** Another. **Tonight is a good start. Meridian Grand.** The room tilted. Edena gripped the sofa arm until the fabric creaked. *Oh,* the voice said with interest. *I like this one. Bossy.* Edena typed with numb fingers. **Who is this?** Three dots. Then: **Someone who was there.** "Madie." Her voice came out too calm. "What's happening at the Meridian Grand tonight?" Madie's eyebrows climbed. "Hollis Rourke's Midnight Gala? Only the most expensive party in Port Halden. Rumor is his girlfriend's announcing their engagement." She narrowed her eyes. "Why?" "I need to be in that room." Madie studied her for a long moment. Then she put down the nail file, opened her phone, and scrolled. "I do nails for a stylist who has a sample closet," she said. "I have a key, a dress, and no morals." --- The Meridian Grand's rooftop ballroom was a glass box sixty floors above the harbor, and every person inside it was worth more than Edena's entire postcode. A champagne tower glittered under a chandelier the size of a small car. A string quartet played a slow, aching cover of a pop song nobody admitted to liking. Outside the main entrance, a vintage Rolls-Royce had been parked purely for decoration. Edena wore emerald silk that cost more than a year of rent and came with one instruction from Madie: *Do not sweat.* She worked the room the way she'd worked a hundred client events. She clocked the shipping heir with the gambling problem. The actress pretending not to see her ex. The photographer who only shot people who tipped. And on a low stage, Leona Dessa: eleven million followers, white satin, and a smile sharpened for headlines. Then the crowd split down the middle, and Hollis Rourke walked through it. Tall. Black suit, no tie. Dark hair pushed back like he'd done it with one impatient hand. Pale grey eyes that went over people without stopping, as if he were reading a list and none of them were on it. People stepped aside for him the way doors open for someone with a keycard. *Oh,* said a voice in Edena's head. Not Fiendh's voice. A man's. Warm, flustered, and very close. *Oh no. Oh, she's lovely. Hollis. Hollis, don't look. No, wait. Look. LOOK at her.* Edena checked her ears for an earpiece she wasn't wearing. Inside her, Fiendh rose like a tide. *Who said that?* *Ah. Sorry. Hello.* The man's voice cleared its throat, which made no sense, because it didn't have one. *I'm Zikal. I'm his.* A pause. *And you're... oh. Oh. You're ours.* Across the ballroom, Hollis Rourke stopped dead. He turned. Those pale eyes found Edena through three hundred people and locked on as if he'd been searching for her in the dark. Fiendh said something to him. Edena didn't hear the words. She only felt her wolf's grin, wide and wicked, spreading through her chest. The stem of the champagne flute in Hollis's hand snapped clean in two. He crossed the room. Guests turned to watch. Edena didn't move, because moving would look like running, and she hadn't run from anything since the lake. He stopped close enough for her to smell cedar and cold air. "Who sent you?" His voice was quiet. Lethal. "I could ask you the same question," she murmured, "about the man in my head." Something dark crossed his face. Then he lifted his chin and spoke loud enough to carry. "Whatever you think this is, it isn't happening. Not tonight. Not ever." He didn't look away from her. "Leang. Remove her." A broad man in a grey suit appeared at Edena's elbow. Leona Dessa floated up behind Hollis and rested a hand on his arm. "Sweetie," she cooed at Edena, loud enough for the front row, "the staff entrance is on level two." The laugh moved through the crowd like a wave. Phones rose. Edena saw at least a dozen red recording dots. The man in grey took her arm. Firmly. Not roughly. "Mind the dress," Edena told him. "It's a loan, and so is my patience." *I'm so sorry,* Zikal moaned as she was steered toward the elevators. *He's not usually like this. No, that's a lie, he is. I can't lie. It's a whole thing.* The elevator doors slid open. *Listen,* Zikal said, suddenly serious. *I can only say true things, so hear this one. He has been looking for you for years.* The doors closed on the ballroom. Edena's phone buzzed in her clutch. A photo. Her, mid-humiliation, a security guard's hand on her arm, Hollis Rourke's back turned. Shot from above, from the glass mezzanine overlooking the ballroom. **Sloppy. He'll come to you. When he does, say yes.** She zoomed in on the angle with shaking fingers. Whoever took it had been standing directly above her the whole time. Close enough to see her face when Hollis Rourke said no. And as the elevator dropped, a second photo arrived. Her. Right now. Inside the elevator.