Her father was waiting for her.
Lyra returned to the estate at four in the morning, slipping through the garden door as she'd done a dozen times before. The house was dark. Silent. She moved through the hallways without sound, a shadow among shadows.
She reached her room and opened the door.
Her father was sitting on her bed.
The journal. The letters. Her notes. They were spread across the comforter like evidence at a trial. Cassius Silvanus sat among them, his posture perfect, his expression unreadable.
"Close the door," he said.
Lyra closed it.
She didn't speak. There was nothing to say. He'd found everything. The only question was how long he'd known.
"Sit."
She sat in the chair by the window. The sky outside was beginning to lighten—gray creeping into black. Her father didn't look at the window. He was watching her with those winter-sky eyes, patient and measuring.
"You've been in the library," he said. "Without permission."
"Yes."
"You've been meeting with a wolf."
She didn't answer. Denial would be pointless. He already knew.
"His name is Kael Shadowbane. Son of Aldric Shadowbane, Alpha of the Northern Pack. You've met him at least seven times in the past two weeks. You've explored the old tunnels beneath the industrial district. You've found the altar."
Lyra's hands were cold. She pressed them together in her lap.
"How long have you known?"
"Since the beginning." Her father reached into his coat and withdrew a photograph. He set it on the bed beside the scattered papers. The image showed Lyra and Kael at the entrance to the tunnel—the dumpster, the grate, their faces caught in the glow of a streetlight. "I've had you followed since the night you came home with the scent of a wolf on your coat."
She stared at the photograph. The evidence was undeniable. She and Kael, together, caught in a moment of shared purpose.
"Why didn't you stop me?"
"Because I wanted to see what you would find." Her father's voice was quiet. Not angry. Something else. "I've known about the creature since 1847. I tried to stop it. I failed. I spent the next century pretending I'd never tried at all. And then you came to me with questions I couldn't answer, and I realized that my failure didn't have to be the end of the story."
Lyra looked at him. At the father she'd spent a hundred years trying to understand. At the vampire who'd written desperate letters to wolves and been rejected. At the man who'd buried his failure so deep that even she hadn't seen it.
"You knew I was meeting Kael. You let me."
"I hoped you would find something I couldn't. An alliance. A way forward." He paused. "A reason to try again."
"The ritual requires a sacrifice. Someone has to give their name willingly."
"I know."
"Then why didn't you do it? In 1847, when you had the chance?"
Her father was quiet for a long moment. The sky outside was lighter now—dawn creeping over the forest.
"Because I was afraid," he said finally. "Not of dying. Of being forgotten. Of giving my name and having no one remember who I was. I told myself I was protecting my family. My position. But the truth is simpler. I was a coward."
Lyra had never heard her father admit to weakness. Not once. Not in a hundred years.
"The wolf," he continued. "Kael Shadowbane. His grandmother wrote about the creature. She believed it could be stopped. She was braver than I was."
"She died knowing no one believed her."
"Yes. And now her grandson is standing where I should have stood a century ago. With you."
Lyra looked at the photograph again. At the two of them, caught in the streetlight, unaware they were being watched.
"What happens now?" she asked.
Her father stood. He walked to the window and looked out at the lightening sky.
"Now you finish what I couldn't. You and the wolf. You find a way to bind the creature. And you do it together."
"And if we fail?"
He turned back to her. His expression was unreadable, but his voicez was steady.
"Then you fail together. And that's more than I ever managed."