The elevator didn't come back.
It dropped sideways with a soft chime that landed wrong a note played between notes and the shaft stayed empty, dark, smelling of creek water and ozone, as if it had gone to a floor that didn't exist and decided to stay there.
Elara held the green t-shirt that smelled of mud and pennies. A small handprint on the front, six fingers, silver blood drying white at the edges. On the floor beside her feet, the Council order smoked, the new line etched in Maeve's handwriting still glowing faintly:
Don't bring Kieran. They will kill him to get you to sit.
Kieran read it over her shoulder and smiled with a bloody mouth.
"Let them try," he said.
Elara didn't smile back. She looked at his palm pressed to hers, blood to blood, black wolf blood silver-threaded now
