Shadows & Secrets

Chapter 10

They shifted back to human form in shifts—half the team at a time so that the other half could stay alert. Aurora went in the second round, pulling her clothes from her pack with the brisk efficiency of someone who had done this in clearings exactly like this one too many times to count.

Marcus was already dressed and chewing on a strip of dried meat when she joined him at the spring's edge.

"You're quieter than usual," he said.

"You're observant as usual."

"Mm." He passed her a strip of meat. "Mikhail been weird with you?"

She glanced at him. "Weirder than yesterday?"

"That's a yes."

"That's a yes," she agreed.

He chewed thoughtfully. "He pulled me aside this morning. Before the assembly."

"I know."

"Ah." His emerald eyes flicked to hers. "How much did you hear?"

"Enough to know that he asked you to watch me, and that he wouldn't tell you why, and that you pushed back on that and he didn't push back on your push." She kept her voice low and even. "Enough to know that whatever is going on, you're not in on it any more than I am."

Marcus was quiet for a moment. "I don't like it."

"I don't like being told to watch you."

"And I really don't like not being told why."

"Are you going to do it?"

"I'm going to watch you," he said.

"I was always going to watch you. That's the job. What I'm not going to do is report observations to him that aren't mine to share."

He looked at her sidelong.

"If he asks me what I'm seeing, I'll tell him you're handling yourself the way you always do. Which is true. Which is the only true thing I'm obligated to give him."

Aurora let out a breath she hadn't quite known she was holding. "Thank you."

"Don't thank me. It's not a favor. It's the actual line."

"It's still a line a lot of people would have crossed."

He shrugged. "A lot of people are bad at their jobs."

She huffed something that was almost a laugh, and they ate in silence for a while, watching the rest of the team move around the clearing in the choreographed rhythm of professionals who had done this enough times that the work no longer required discussion.

"Marcus," she said, eventually. "I'm hearing something."

His chewing slowed. "Hearing as in audible, or hearing as in instinct?"

"The second. Started in the city. Stronger out here."

She watched the surface of the spring move with the wind. "It's coming from the direction we're going. I don't know what it is yet, but it has structure. It's not in the background, but a pattern."

He was quiet for a moment, working through it the way he worked through things—methodically, without rushing to interpretation. "You think Mikhail's hearing it too?"

"I think Mikhail has known about it since before we left Mooncrest. Whether that's because he's hearing it or because someone told him to expect it, I don't know."

"And you didn't mention it in the briefing because—"

"Because I don't know what I'm describing, and I'd rather not have my first attempt at describing it be in front of him."

Marcus nodded slowly. "Smart."

"Also Vincent told me something last night that I want to tell you."

He set down the strip of meat. "All right."

She told him. Not everything. She kept Vincent's specific phrasing private, and she kept the geography of where they'd been when he'd told her even more private, but she shared the substance of it.

The disappearances were targeted. The pattern was young women with strong pack ties or unusual abilities. Vincent's sources hadn't given him a why yet, but the what was clear enough that he had wanted her to know before she walked into Bloodmoon territory.

Marcus took it in without interrupting. When she finished, he was quiet for a long moment.

"Okay," he said. "First—thank you for telling me. Second—that's consistent with something Mikhail said this morning that I didn't understand at the time. He said nothing is going to happen that you can't handle. Not nothing is going to happen. He was anticipating that something might."

"He's been anticipating something specific."

"Yeah." Marcus rubbed a hand along his jaw. "And he's not telling us what."

"He doesn't have to tell us why. He could just tell us what to watch for, and he hasn't done that either."

"Which means whatever he's expecting, he doesn't want us to recognize it before it happens."

The implication of that sat between them for a moment, heavy and not pleasant.

"I'm not jumping to the worst version of this," Aurora said finally. "Mikhail has been my mentor for four years. He has never given me reason to doubt his good faith. But—"

"But the absence of bad faith isn't the same as the presence of trust." Marcus finished it for her. "Yeah. I know. I've been thinking the same thing since this morning."

She nodded.

"So what do we do?" he asked.

"We do the mission. We go to Bloodmoon. We gather intelligence. We do all the things we'd do if we trusted everyone in our chain of command completely." She looked at him.

"And we watch each other's backs more closely than usual. And we don't share with anyone else what we've just shared with each other unless we decide together that it's time to share it."

"Agreed."

"And if I start to see things that look like the pattern Vincent described—"

"You tell me immediately."

"And we figure out together what to do."

"Together," he confirmed.

They shook on it.

It felt strangely formal for two people who had trusted each other with their lives for four years.

Neither of them smiled.