"Did the sun set yet?" Alex asked.

"No." That was Nate, and he didn't sound happy.

A minute passed, the seconds ticking so slowly. "How about now?"

"No."

Alex hummed his disapproval. His fingers began tapping at the wall, annoying everyone. "How'd you know?"

"I don't. You do. When you can shift, the moon must be out. So tell me when that happens, and in the meantime, shut the hell up," Nate said shortly.

There was another brief pause. I let my head rest against the wall, fighting the urge to stretch out my legs. They were cramped and tingling, but there wasn't room to solve that. Standing up in this dark, cold tunnel made me feel too vulnerable.

And it certainly was cold. Shivers racked my body every so often. After an hour of that Nate had, very grudgingly, offered to share body heat. I had refused because Kai was there too, even though he couldn't reach me.

Hours trickled by. Not a steady, seamless flow of time, but rather a halted dripping which left me uneasy and drained. We had no way of telling what was going on outside. For all we knew, the rest of the world could have ceased to exist.

And then, just when I had given up hope of ever escaping the blackness of the tunnel, Alex shouted triumphantly. There was a scuff of claws on stone, a grumble from Ben, and then a wet muzzle was nosing at my hand.

Laughing, I shoved the wolf away from me. "Well, that was stupid. Now your clothes are in shreds."

Alex whined piteously, but he didn't make any attempt to reach the mind-link. Quite happy to let his IQ speak for his actions.

"It's alright," Nate said softly. The earlier tension was gone from his voice-along with the strain. We had a way out now. "The exit is a staircase. He should be able to manage it without shifting."

"Then let's go."

I stood up, stretching my aching muscles. It felt good to be on my feet, even if they were about to carry me into danger again. One hand on the rough stones and the other keeping track of Nate, I edged along the wall. It was only a few metres before he stepped up abruptly, and I knew we had reached the steps.

It was a steep staircase. Steep enough that I had to use my hands as well as my feet while I fumbled in the dark. Alex had it harder, true. He slipped and skidded without any purchase for his claws, and the sounds echoed dangerously loudly.

Nate whispered a warning too late — my head hit something very solid. I swore. It turned out to be a trapdoor, wooden and half-rotted. The Shadowcat leant a shoulder against it, and the wood groaned as it gave way.

Light. Dim light. With the sun down and only a sliver of the moon showing, the outside world was hardly illuminated at all. But now I could see Nate's silhouette in the entrance, framed by starlight.

We climbed out slowly. One by one. Kai, healed now, was helping Ben with Marcus Rochester. Our prisoner had woken twice in the tunnel, only to be knocked out again before he could even think of mind-linking. I was trying my best to forget his existence. Because the more I thought about him, the more I felt my fingers creeping towards my knife.

Seb had been family. And if Marcus had helped kill him, even escaped punishment for six years... Then I wanted blood. Well ... probably. I didn't really know what I wanted. But it sure felt like I should want him dead.

"We can't take him with us," Nate pointed out, with a vague gesture at the unconscious guard. He must have been thinking along the same lines. "I'll take care of it."

"What? No! We're not killing him," Becky hissed.

"You're not," he agreed. "I am."

Kai's head snapped up. "Nobody's killing anyone. Leave him here and let's go."

"And where are we even going? Has anyone thought of that?" Becky, again. I wasn't sure if she was in an argumentative mood, or she was just upset, or what. But there was definitely something going on with her.

Kai ducked out from under Marcus Rochester, finally losing patience. Ben let him fall to the ground and stepped to the prince's shoulder. Even as I wondered how long those two had fought together, Kai was running a hand through his hair, full of frustration. "Yes, I've thought about it. But there's nowhere to go. Nowhere safe. So unless anyone has a better idea, we'll go to the mainland and pray my relatives are still alive."

"Rhodric," Nate said slowly. "You want to go looking for Rhodric Llewellyn? He's supposed to be dead."

A careless shrug. "He's not. My mother seems to think he could help us. And it's better than being hunted down on the island, where there's nowhere left to run."

"No. It's not. I have another idea..." I could see a spark in his eyes which had never been there before. "There might be a way to salvage the situation here. I never even considered ... never thought ...  But Rhodric—"

It was difficult to follow his train of thought. But the sudden hope, the daring in his voice, made me want to believe. I could see the same wary attentiveness from the others. We wanted to believe there was a solution.

"Just trust me. If we go north instead — to my home — I can get you a hundred Shadowcats," he said finally.

A shiver ran down my spine. Because a force like that could change the tide of any war before it began. The Shadowcats, added to Davengard and Llewellyn House fighters, added to how ever many Moon Guard swapped sides, and we had an army to rival Wyatt Rochester's.

"And what's changed since this morning, when you insisted your father would stay out of the fighting?" she demanded.

"Now we have something to offer him. We might even make it worth his while."

"Okay then," Kai said with a note of finality.

And that settled it, I suppose. We were going to Silveryn territory, against my better judgement. Hadn't Kai fallen down that staircase to keep us away from that place? But no — it had been to free Nate and make sure we didn't go defenceless. Maybe this was for the best. Maybe.

"So what," Ben asked, "are we going to do about the guard?"

"Leave him here. And that's final," the prince insisted.

It took every ounce of courage to face up to him then. "Well, actually ... I agree with Nate. He's a loose end we can't afford."

The shock in Kai's face was astonishing. "What the hell? Since when did you...?"

"I just think it's dangerous to leave him here — better than a breadcrumb for them to follow. And it's not like he'll be the last person to die in this war."

His eyes flared wide. "Sav..."

We exchanged a long look. I felt the tenuous mind-link tingling as he picked up on a communication beyond words. I had no way of telling if he knew everything, or just my hatred for Marcus, for whatever reason. But he knew enough.

I scratched at my sleeves just for something to do.

"It's all I can think about," I admitted in a small voice, without a thought for how lost everyone else must have been.

Kai kissed me. Without any care for the people watching, or the situation, he pulled me towards him and connected our lips. It lasted only a heartbeat. Just long enough to leave me wanting more. "Think about that."

I felt a blush spread across my cheeks. Not least because Ben, Becky and Alex's wolf were staring at us with raised eyebrows and sly smiles. Their reactions to our relationship, I could handle. Just about. But I avoided looking at Nate, and he certainly didn't look at me.

"Okay," I agreed finally. No one was backing me up, and I must have seemed more and more psychotic by the second. Kill him. As if. We didn't kill people. It was the only rule, really.

"Good. We'll leave him in the tunnel."

Nate bent down and easily lifted Marcus's shoulders before Ben could move. He seemed to be volunteering, and no one was arguing. I would have let him do it alone, if he hadn't jerked his head in my direction. With a drawn-out sigh, I picked up the limp legs, supporting half the weight as we edged back down the steps. Why me? Ugh.

I tripped over my own feet twice, but we managed to navigate the slippery stone all the way to the bottom, where I dropped Marcus's ankles carelessly. He hit the floor, sandy hair askew. Nate crouched down and felt his throat, checking for a pulse or something, I didn't really know or care—

There was a wet crunch like a branch snapping. And then Marcus's neck hung at the wrong angle, and his body hung limp-utterly lifeless. My heart started thundering in my chest, the thuds echoing beyond plausibility.

"Kai said—" I started nervously, more out of reflex and shock than anything.

"I don't care. I don't answer to him. Not yet," Nate said carelessly.

He had stayed silent, I realised. When I had suggested killing Marcus the second time, he had kept his mouth shut because Kai had already made his position clear and he didn't want to arouse suspicion. And so the others had left us alone with him. Smart. Ruthless, but smart.

I spluttered, "But why? Why did you kill him?"

Because Nate couldn't have known that Marcus was one of Seb's murderers — he didn't know the patrol. I was sure of that. So had he really killed him just to tie up a loose end?

"You seem to forget that I can overhear mind-links, Sav. Feelings as easily as words. Kaeden might not have realised the significance, but..." He shrugged. "I knew what I was looking for. And you were right — we can't leave a breadcrumb trail."

"You did that ... for me?" Because I had made a mistake. I'd thought I'd wanted him dead, but now it had actually happened, I was beginning to realise just how wrong I had been. Completely, lethally wrong.

He narrowed his eyes. "Of course not. I did it for Seb. It may surprise you, but my kind protect our own."

"Oh," I said pathetically. Seb hadn't been a Shadowcat. And as far as I'd known, he hadn't done anything to help their species, like the dead king had. So I didn't really understand, and it must have shown on my face.

Nate cocked his head to one side. His frown, for once, was more puzzled than angry. "You really don't know, do you?"

"Don't know what?"

"Who he was."

Nate didn't offer any more information than that. And I didn't ask. On any other day, it would have caught my attention. It would have nagged at me until I'd pried an explanation out of him. But in that moment, having just watched a man die, I was more preoccupied with the realisation that I didn't want revenge. I didn't want to know who had killed Seb, or why, and I didn't want to see them pay for it. All of that anger was just ... gone.

So I avoided looking at the limp body. At the wrongness of his spine. At those empty eyes. And to my eternal shame, I shut my mouth and left the tunnel. Re-joined my patrol without saying a damned word about the corpse below our feet.

It wouldn't have mattered anyway. Kai took one look at my stricken face and stormed down the steps with a murderous expression even as Nate was coming up. The two of them almost collided physically.

"What did you do?" Kai demanded.

He didn't reply, but that didn't stop Kai peering past him into the gloom. I didn't doubt that he could see how Marcus's head and body were at right angles. Anger and misery filled his face in equal measures.

"What did you do?"

Nate just shrugged. "I told you. He knew. He saw us in that toilet block. And they could find the tunnel in ten seconds flat with that information. It would have destroyed any chance of sacking Evarlin in the future. So. You can see the solution I found."

The prince growled, "You had absolutely no right to go against—"

And he was cut off with a low hiss. "You? You are not a Llewellyn, Kaeden. You are not magically qualified to lead. Don't forget that."

"Are you denying my blood, or just my worth?"

"Perhaps both," Nate said. "Your surname being Davengard is the cause of all of our problems. Surely you can see how it must have offended Wyatt, that his house was the only one without a stake in the throne. Can you blame him for what he's done since?"

And that — the final blow — was what shut Kai up. I knew the story as well as anyone. His surname had been changed after his dad's assassination, as a tribute and a memorial. It had never been intended to insult the Rochesters, of course. But Nate's words rang with a horrible truth.

Kai turned away and sat down heavily on one of the steps, giving up. But Becky was only just getting started, "Is there a reason you snapped his neck, or was it just because he was a Rochester?"

Nate's flat stare was off-putting to say the least. "If you must know, he killed Seb Fairborne."

"We didn't know that for certain," I began cautiously. It had always been a suspicion, not a solid truth.

"—and before that Kaeden's father. Everywhere I checked, the evidence pointed to a Rochester on patrol eighty being the assassin. He fit the profile exactly."

She bridled in disgust. "Not good enough! A surname is not proof of guilt. For all you know, Seb killed the king and Marcus was doing justice."

She may as well have punched me. It would have hurt less. Pain coiled in my chest, my throat unbearably tight. And of course, the guards on Evarlin's walls chose that as the perfect time to return to their posts. Excited shouting reached my wolf's sensitive ears.

By the way the others froze, I knew they heard it too. It was time to leave. This squabbling could wait until we were safe. Already, we had lingered here far too long. We could have been miles away had we moved immediately.

"Time to go," Kai said wearily.

As one, we shifted into our wolves. Five wolves soon stood in the forest where we had been arguing bitterly only moments before. Nate followed our example soon afterwards, and I couldn't help admiring that inky black pelt and sleek, graceful body.

It was a long way to Silveryn territory, but the miles flowed like water with four legs and the stamina of predators. It couldn't have taken longer than two hours in total, even with several breaks to rest and drink. And then, long after we crossed the border into Shadowcat land, Nate stopped in his tracks and had us all shift back and get dressed.

The locals started making themselves known as we approached a cluster of buildings. The largest, a hall, seemed to be our destination. Nate was leading us wordlessly towards it. Men and women and Shadowcats alike stood and stared at our strange procession.

Nate's pendant hung heavily over my uniform. The tiny jade stones glared down every shadowy figure. And so none of them moved to intercept us, even though they clearly wanted to. Nate also contributed to that. Although it was obvious he wasn't comfortable amongst his own people, since cats solitary creatures, he certainly intimidated them.

The Shadowcats' home was not what I had expected ... at all. When we passed through a low archway, I noted that the interior was made entirely of interwoven hazel branches, all living as far as I could tell. Someone had manipulated the trees as they grew to create solid walls and a ceiling. Although the gaps were filled with leaves for the most part, I dreaded to think how cold it would get in winter. Maybe this hall was not meant to be lived in.

Isaiah Silveryn lounged in a cedar chair at the far end as if he had been born sitting in it. This was a man accustomed to power and grovelling and getting what he wanted. And somehow, we had to persuade him to work with us, preferably without forsaking our dignity.

The shadows on his face hid features which I was sure would be identical to Nate's. All I could really see was jet-black hair and narrow, uncaring eyes. But their colour really struck me. Not quite Nate's forest green — more like jade.

"Kaeden. My condolences. I was so sorry to hear about your mother." His voice was velvety smooth and cultured. I immediately despised every word which came out of that thin mouth.

"My mother?" Kai asked, although I could see him fitting the pieces together in his head.

"You didn't know?" Surprise, discomfort even, flickered in those jade eyes. "Gwen Llewellyn passed away this morning. I suppose that makes you king now, doesn't it?"

He stood, only to kneel down right in front of us. So did every other Shadowcat in the hall. Yet Kai's face was deathly pale and empty, and he didn't seem to see them, see anything. No — he gazed into vacant space as if looking for the parent who was no longer there.