Chapter 49: The Name

Chapter 49: The Name
The study was very quiet at that hour.

The rest of the palace had settled into its night sounds, distant footsteps, wind through stone, the creak of the east corridor. But in here there was just the low burn of the desk candles and the two women sitting across from Josh.

Dan stood by the door.

The first woman was older. Perhaps fifty. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and her back straight.

The second was younger. Quieter. She kept her eyes on the floor and her hands wrapped together and said nothing unless the first woman prompted her.

"I am all ears," Josh said.

The older woman nodded once.

Then she spoke.

++++

She spoke for a long time.

Josh did not interrupt. His gaze did not shift. He just listened the way he listened when something mattered, completely still, missing nothing.

She told him about the raids. Not one. Several. Coordinated. Planned months in advance with information that could only have come from someone with access to pack territories and border schedules. She told him about the carts. The symbol. The network of buyers and sellers that stretched across six territories and had been running for years underneath everyone's notice because it targeted the people nobody looked for – omegas, unmated wolves, low-ranked pack members with no family to report them missing.

She told him how she had escaped. The route she had taken. The people who had helped her along the way.

And then she told him the name.

Josh sat very still.

"You are certain," he said. It was not quite a question.

"I heard it spoken directly," the older woman said. "By one of the men who ran the Yesmar collection. He did not know I was close enough to hear. But I heard it clearly." She met Josh's eyes. "I have no reason to lie to you, your majesty. I only want it stopped."

Josh looked at her for a long moment.

"You will be safe here," he said. "Both of you. Dan will arrange accommodation tonight." He looked at Dan. "Make sure they have everything they need."

Dan nodded and stepped forward.

The older woman stood. The younger one followed.

At the door the older woman stopped and turned back.

"Your majesty," she said. "I am sorry it is who it is. I imagine that is not easy to hear."

Josh said nothing.

They left.

++++

He sat alone in the study for a long time.

The candles burned lower.

He thought about Harris at seven years old, smaller than the other boys in the pack, following Josh everywhere with that particular determination of someone who had decided they belonged somewhere and was not going to be argued out of it. He thought about the year his parents died and Harris had been the only person who had not treated him like something fragile. He thought about every year since. Every meal. Every council meeting. Every time he had looked across a room and seen his cousin there and felt something settle.

He picked up his pen.

He set it down.

He pressed both hands flat on the desk and looked at the wall.

The name the woman had spoken sat in the room like a stone dropped in still water. Rings moving outward from it, touching everything, changing the shape of things he had thought were fixed.

He was still sitting there when the knock came.

Three light knocks. Harris's knock.

"Come in," Josh said.

Harris entered. He was still in his coat from the journey, relaxed, carrying two cups. He set one on the desk in front of Josh with the ease of someone who had been doing this for years and intended to keep doing it.

"You look like a man who has had a long day," Harris said, settling into the chair across the desk. "Which you have. So do I. The Greywood gatherings never get shorter."

Josh looked at his cousin.

Harris picked up his cup. "Cassandra is settled in the east wing staff quarters apparently. Jean dealt with it without blinking. That woman is remarkable." He took a sip. "The Olivia effect I think. Jean has a soft spot for anyone Olivia vouches for."

Josh said nothing.

Harris looked at him over the rim of his cup. Something shifted in his expression. Just slightly. The casual ease adjusted itself almost imperceptibly.

"What?" Harris said.

"Nothing," Josh said. "Long day."

Harris looked at him a moment longer.

"Right," he said.

He finished his cup. Set it down. Stood up.

"Get some sleep," he said. "The pack does not stop because you attended a ceremony."

He walked to the door.

"Harris," Josh called.

Harris stopped. Turned.

Josh looked at his cousin across the quiet study. At the face he had known his entire life.

"Good night," Josh said.

Something moved in Harris's eyes. Brief. Unreadable.

"Good night, Josh," he replied.

He left.

The door closed behind him.

Josh sat alone and listened to the footsteps fade down the corridor.

++++

Olivia was coming back from the kitchen with a cup of warm water when she saw them.

Dan was walking the two women down the corridor toward the guest quarters. They moved quietly, the older one slightly ahead, the younger one close behind.

Olivia stepped to the side to let them pass.

The younger woman went by without looking up.

The older one slowed.

She looked at Olivia.

Not the way people looked at a stranger. The way people looked at someone they recognised from a place they had both been trying to forget.

Olivia looked back at her.

She did not know this woman. She was certain of that. She had never seen this face before.

And yet something in the woman's expression, the particular way her eyes moved over Olivia's face, the slight catch in her step before she continued walking, made the back of Olivia's neck feel cold.

The women turned the corner.

Dan followed without glancing back.

Olivia stood there with her cup of warm water and the strange cold feeling that had settled at the base of her throat.

That woman knew you, Lisa said quietly. She has seen you before.

"I have never seen her," Olivia said.

That is not what I said.

Olivia looked at the empty corridor where the women had been.

She knew you, Lisa said again. From before.

Olivia stood there for a long moment.

Then she walked back to her room and sat on the edge of her bed and stared at the floor.

She did not sleep for a very long time.