Page 23 of Fated to the Fang

"Helena can call it whatever she flaming well wants. A reported watch becomes council custody,” I say. “Council custody becomes a vote. A vote becomes Avery on that bench with no preparation and no protection. I am not hiding her from the danger. I am delaying the law until I have something stronger than panic to put in front of it."

Celeste's expression sharpens. "That isn't containment, Dorian. That's a line drawn against your own side."

"Yes."

Celeste does not move as I start to retreat.

"Dorian." I stop with my hand on the door. "When Avery finds the watch, she will think you chose surveillance over truth."

"She'll be right."

"That could damage you."

"Yes. But I'd rather her be safe."

"And if Helena finds it first?"

"Then she learns I can still keep a secret from my own chamber. No one touches Avery. No one questions Owen without me. If Greer asks why people are on his docks, he gets weather, not lies he can't carry."

"Those are not council orders."

"Nope."

"Then whose are they?"

I open the door. Cold harbor air moves through the stairwell, carrying salt, diesel, and the first gulls crying over the slips.

"Mine."

I leave her there and take the stairs toward the harbor.

Avery deserves the truth. She will have it soon. But the moment I give it to her, Helena's law gains a name, a witness, and a reason to cut. So I'll build the shield first. Then I face her.

15

AVERY

Sleep doesn't come. It keeps drifting in, then pulling back. By four A.M., I've checked Owen's clinic update twice, cleaned dried blood from the strap of my field bag, and laid the Cradle Skerry notes across Mabel's little writing desk in a crooked grid.

I write the last thought down because I'm done protecting impossible things by refusing to name them. The ink sits there, black and blunt. The tourists lied the same way. Below it, I write: Saltline. Then: Dorian knew before anyone told him.

Claustrophobia creeps in as the room shrinks around me. The harbor outside is dark, a thin moon shines over it, and every shadow looks like it has been waiting there for me to find.

I see an orange coal flare and dim. Once. Twice. Patient. A person with a cigarette outside my window. Nobody stands in the cold at this hour unless they're monitoring something or someone. I'm out the door with one boot half on.

Dorian appears on the corner, in from the dark like he has a key to it.

"Call him off," I swing my arm. "The one with the cigarette. And whoever's been sitting on Nora's since yesterday, AND the one I keep half seeing at the clinic door."

"Avery."

"You put people on me?"

"Yes."

"Let me guess. Protection."

"It is."