Page 62

She slept for three hours. Woke at six to a compound that smelled of coffee, wet stone, repair work already underway at the gatehouse.

Caitlynn found her in the garden at six-thirty.

Sloane was on the stone bench with the ward notes spread beside her, cross-referencing the atmospheric data from the compound’s weather station against the patrol logs Chris had pulled for her three days earlier. She’d been at it since she’d given up on sleep, her pencil moving down columns of numbers, marking the points where the ward response times lagged behind the incursion timestamps.

Caitlynn came through the garden gate with Elianna asleep in the pram, a mug of ginger tea in her free hand. She stopped when she saw Sloane.

“You’re bleeding through your bandage,” Caitlynn said, an edge of worry in her voice.

“It reopened when I reached for the logs.” Sloane pressed her elbow against the gauze without looking down. “It’s fine.”

“You’re dripping onto the data.”

Sloane glanced at the page. A small red bloom was spreading across the atmospheric readings for station twelve. She blotted it with her sleeve.

“Sit down,” she said, and only heard how it sounded after it left her mouth. An order, given to the Luna, on the Luna’s own bench. She added, “If you want.”

Caitlynn sat. She set her tea on the stone between them, tucked a loose strand of auburn hair behind her ear. Her green eyes moved over the spread pages.

“Viktor briefed Kahn at five,” Caitlynn said. “About the attack.”

“Good.”

“He didn’t mention the wards.”

“That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.” Sloane smoothed the pages flat, turning them so Caitlynn could read the columns. “The incursion last night triggered the perimeter alert. But the response time was off. Eight seconds between the first wolf crossing the fence line and the alarm sounding. Your system should catch it in four.”

Caitlynn’s tea hand paused halfway to her mouth. She set the mug back down.

“I recalibrated the east gate anchors two weeks ago,” Caitlynn said. “Personally.”

“I know. I watched you do it.” Sloane tapped the third entry in the data column. “The resonance at anchor twelve dropped six hertz during the last low-pressure front. It’s subtle. It wouldn’t create a full gap. But it delays detection long enough for someone who’s counting the seconds.”

Caitlynn leaned forward. Her finger traced the numbers, following the correlation between the atmospheric readings and the ward response times. Sloane had spent two hours drawing those connections. Caitlynn was following them in seconds.

“Where did you get the weather station data?” Caitlynn asked.

“I pulled it from the compound’s system three days ago. Chris helped me cross-reference with the operational logs.”

“The two of you mapped this yourselves.”

“The terrain, yes. The ward readings are mine.”

Caitlynn’s finger stopped at the entry for anchor nine. She tapped it twice, quick, decisive.

“This one,” Caitlynn said. “Between the training yard and the supply block. I recalibrated it last.”

“It also has the widest variance. Point-seven hertz spread across a forty-minute pressure change. Everything else holds within point-three.”

“The matrix at that anchor runs through a secondary relay. Iron core. It predates the current system by decades.” Caitlynn straightened, her eyes sharper now, the casual morning posture gone. “If the iron is degrading, it would amplify atmospheric interference instead of buffering it.”

“Can you replace the relay?”

“I can. But I’ll need to pull the old core first to see how much degradation we’re dealing with. If it’s structural, the whole sub-matrix at that anchor needs rebuilding from the ground.” Caitlynn picked up her tea, took a long sip, and set it down again. “How did you learn ward architecture?”

“My father’s territory ran on a similar system before the banishment. Older, rougher. I spent a lot of time near the anchors as a child.”

She didn’t say why. She didn’t say that the ward line at the edge of the property had been the farthest point from the house, or that she’d pressed her back against those iron stakes on nights when the house got too loud, feeling the hum in the metal travel through her spine until her heart rate slowed.