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creature should not be here! Who let him in?” Logan demands.
    “Someone get a medic!” Roach yells.
    Freya is lying on the floor, her dark skin glistening with blood. Air rasps out of
     her lips as she struggles to breathe, her black eyes wild and panicked. Her chest
     and stomach have been slashed open, revealing her guts, which are being held in by
     the man—the
Lupine
—crouched next to her.
    He’s powerfully built, in his late twenties, with a heavy brow hooding steel-colored
     eyes and a strip of mottled gray hair down the center of his shaved head. Even though
     he’s crouching, it’s clear he’s tall—at least seven feet. He’s wearing a smoky-gray-colored
     tailcoat, black leather trousers and steel-capped boots. I understand why Logan is
     so furious. A Lupine has no right to be here.
    I rush to Freya’s side, taking her hand. “What happened?” I demand.
    “I found her at the Cinderstone plant,” the Lupine says. “The guards caught her breaking
     into the head office.”
    A weight drops in my stomach. She warned me it was heavily guarded.
    “And what were
you
doing at the factory?” Sigur asks the Lupine, clearly suspicious.
    “She wasn’t the only person there gathering information,” he replies gruffly. “I was
     downloading some files from their computers when this stupid girl barged in and nearly
     ruined everything.”
    My fangs throb. “
Don’t
call her stupid.”
    Freya turns her frantic gaze on me and tries to say something, but blood just bubbles
     out of her lips. Whatever she needed to say evaporates with her last, rasping breath.
     Her eyes glaze over.
    Roach tells the rebels to take Freya’s body to the morgue. When she’s been carried
     away, the Lupine stands up, wiping a bloodstained hand on his pants leg before stretching
     it out to Sigur.
    “Rafe Garrick, First Landing pack leader,” he says.
    Sigur ignores it. “Thank you for bringing Freya back to us, Mr. Garrick. Logan will
     escort you—”
    “I think you’ll want to see this,” Garrick interrupts, taking out a shimmering blue
     flash drive from his pocket.
    “What’s on it?” I ask.
    “Schematics for a new super-ghetto in the Mountain Wolf State,” Garrick replies.
    “Why has Purian Rose built a new ghetto?” I say.
    “Because when he wins the vote tomorrow, he plans to ship the Darklings there,” Garrick
     says. “And once you’ve been rounded up, he intends to kill you all.”

4.
    ASH
    THIRTY MINUTES LATER, all the Darkling ministers and rebels have congregated in the Assembly—the oval chamber
     where our political discussions take place. Logan shifts uncomfortably in the seat
     beside me, her cool lilac eyes fixed on Garrick. Sitting next to her are two Darkling
     ministers. The first is a man named Pullo—a gruff-looking Eloka Darkling, with ebony
     hair and glimmering black eyes, like mine. Next to him is Angel, a Shu-Zin Darkling,
     with purple eyes, dark hair and clawed feet, which she’s squeezed into a pair of dainty
     heels. Pullo and Angel occasionally throw cold glances in my direction, barely able
     to hide their contempt for me. Not all the Darklings appreciate a twin-blood being
     on their sacred Assembly.
    Garrick inserts the flash drive into the com-desk—a large touch-screen computer inset
     into a table—and everyone falls silent as an image of five Lupines—three men and two
     women—appears on the digital screen on the back wall. I recognize one of the men.
     He’s the Lupine I saw at the factory with the red leather frock coat and hair ornaments
     made of teeth.
    “I got a tip that a gang of mercenary Lupines, known as the Moondogs, had been transporting
     large quantities of Cinderstone out of Black City on behalf of the Sentry government,”
     Garrick says. “I got suspicious. What was the government doing? It couldn’t be anything
     legit if those gangsters were involved.”
    “We had the same concerns. That’s why I sent Freya to investigate,” Roach