The fire lookout tower felt like a command post on the eve of a battle they couldn't possibly win. The relief of finding Lily alive was now subsumed by the Leaf-Speaker's ominous prophecy. Heal the rift. Alex stared at the maps and journals spread across the rough wooden table, the scribbled names and lines looking less like clues and more like the schematic of a bomb.
Jenkins was cleaning his crossbow with methodical, grim focus. "The Circle," he said without looking up. "It's the lock. And the key. The old pact was made there. The wards are anchored to it. If the forest has a 'voice,' that's where it'll speak."
"And if it speaks in earthquakes and monster hordes?" Alex asked, the memory of the Beast's roar still fresh.
"Then we're all dead, and the Covenant gets a front-row seat to the apocalypse they caused," Jenkins replied flatly. "The old woman's right about one thing: we're fighting symptoms. Carver wants to own the curse. The town wants to forget it. Sebastian wants to endure it. But the forest… it just is. And it's being poisoned."
Alex's burner phone vibrated. A text from Sheriff Walker: "Movement. Carver's aide left the Veritas office with two heavy cases. Headed north out of town. Not towards the forest. Towards the county airfield. Also, Kiera Blackwood just walked into my station."
His breath hitched. Kiera.
"What does she want?" he typed back.
"To turn herself in."
The words were like a physical blow. Alex showed the phone to Jenkins, whose face went stony.
"She's calling their bluff," Jenkins growled. "Or sacrificing herself to keep the truce."
"Stop her," Alex typed, fingers clumsy with urgency.
"Can't. She's not under arrest. She's filing a formal statement. Says she believes she may be a 'public health risk' and is voluntarily placing herself under protective custody for 'assessment.' She's using their own language against them, boxing them into a public, legal process. It's a damn chess move."
It was brilliant and terrifying. By bringing it into the open, into the sheriff's jurisdiction, Kiera was forcing Carver's hand. He couldn't just whisk her away to a private lab. Any "assessment" would have to have oversight, however flimsy. She was trading her freedom for time and visibility, gambling that Carver wouldn't risk exposure with a known subject in official custody.
"Where is she now?"
"Interview room. With a lawyer from the Blackwood foundation. Carver and Vance are on their way, spitting nails. It's a circus."
Alex's mind raced. Kiera had moved her piece, drastically changing the board. The focus was now publicly on her, in town. That might draw eyes away from the forest… or it might make Carver desperate enough to accelerate his other plans.
"The cases headed to the airfield," Alex said aloud. "Extraction gear. Or something worse. If he can't have Kiera quietly, he might try to force the issue with Lily or the forest itself before the deadline."
Jenkins nodded, assembling his crossbow. "Then we split up. You go to town. You're the journalist. Witness the circus. See what you can learn. I'll scout the airfield. See what 'heavy cases' look like."
It was a risk. Splitting their meager forces. But they had to cover ground.
"Be careful," Alex said, a hollow sentiment.
"You too, boy. The wolves in suits are more dangerous than the ones in the woods."
The drive back into Millfield was surreal. The town looked normal, but the air felt charged, like before a thunderstorm. The Sheriff's station had two news vans parked outside—local affiliates from the county seat, drawn by the whisper of a "mysterious voluntary commitment" from a reclusive heiress. The circus was indeed in town.
Alex blended into the small crowd of curious onlookers and reporters. He saw Carver's SUV arrive. Carver emerged, his face a polite mask, but the tension in his jaw was visible. Mayor Vance followed, wringing his hands. They pushed through the scrum and into the station.
Through the glass wall of the sheriff's office, Alex could see the main players. Sheriff Walker at her desk, a fortress of procedural neutrality. Kiera, sitting perfectly still in a chair, wearing a simple grey sweater and slacks, her hands folded in her lap. She looked pale but composed, a diamond under pressure. The Blackwood family lawyer, an elderly man with a stern face, stood behind her. Carver and Vance were talking—rather, Carver was talking, low and intense, while Vance nodded frantically.
Alex's phone buzzed. A message from an unknown number. It was a photo, taken from an angle that suggested a long lens. It showed a small, private hangar at the county airfield. Inside, being loaded onto a unmarked, sleek executive jet, were not cases, but two cylindrical, stainless-steel tanks. They looked like high-tech cryogenic storage units. Biological transport containers.
The caption, from Jenkins, read: "Not extraction. Preservation. They're not planning to study a live subject here. They're planning to ship one out."
Ice water flooded Alex's veins. They weren't setting up a local lab. They were preparing for immediate transport to a primary facility. The "assessment" was a sham. Carver intended to have Kiera declared a risk, potentially by forcing a change under observation, then have her "transferred to a specialized facility" under some obscure public health statute. Once she was on that jet, she'd disappear into the Covenant's global network.
He had to get a warning to her. But how?
His eyes scanned the crowd and landed on a young, bored-looking deputy leaning against a patrol car, keeping the media back. It was Deputy Miller. Alex remembered the flicker in his eyes when he'd come in muddy from the hollow. He wasn't fully in the dark.
Taking a chance, Alex edged through the crowd until he was near the deputy. He kept his voice low, his face turned away from the station windows. "Deputy Miller. A word?"
Miller glanced at him, wary. "Not really a good time, Mr. Reed."
"It's about the cargo at the county airfield. The tanks being loaded onto the Veritas jet."
Miller's feigned boredom vanished. His eyes sharpened. "What about them?"
"They're not for water samples. They're for people. Or what used to be people. They're here for Kiera Blackwood. Sheriff Walker needs to know. Before any transfer orders get signed."
The deputy's face went through a series of rapid calculations—duty, fear, loyalty. He gave a barely perceptible nod. "Wait here."
Miller slipped back into the station. Alex watched as he entered the sheriff's office, bent, and whispered in Walker's ear. Walker's expression didn't change, but her eyes hardened into flint. She said something short to Miller, who left. Then she stood up, interrupting Carver.
The conversation behind the glass became more animated. Walker was pointing at documents, her posture rigid. Carver's polite mask slipped, revealing the cold predator beneath. Kiera watched it all, a silent sphinx.
A few minutes later, Miller came back out, walking straight to Alex. "Sheriff says thank you. She's invoking a 72-hour local hold for psychiatric evaluation. Requires a county judge's order to override or transfer. Bureaucratic nightmare. It'll stall them."
A stall. Not a victory. But time. "And Kiera?"
"She stays in a holding cell tonight. For her own 'safety.' Sheriff will personally guard the key." Miller's voice dropped even lower. "She also said to tell you: 'The clock is still ticking. The forest doesn't care about legal holds.'"
The message was clear. Securing Kiera in the short term was good, but it didn't solve the larger crisis brewing at the Stone Circle. Carver, thwarted here, would likely throw all his resources into securing his backup plan: forcing a confrontation in the woods, capturing Lily, or provoking the forest into a display of power he could use to justify a full-scale "intervention."
Alex looked back at the station window. Kiera was being led out of the office by a female deputy, towards the holding cells. As she passed the window, her eyes found Alex in the crowd. There was no smile, no recognition. But her gaze held his for a full second, and in it, he saw a fierce, determined fire. She had chosen her battlefield. She had forced the enemy into the light, if only for a moment.
She had given them one more night.
Now, they had to use it. The split forces had yielded critical intelligence. Jenkins was monitoring the airfield. Kiera was (relatively) safe for now. The Covenant's local play was tangled in red tape.
But the true heart of the conflict wasn't in a sheriff's office or an airfield hangar. It was in the dark, among ancient stones, where a wounded forest and centuries of pain were about to meet the cold, clinical ambition of the new world.
Alex turned and walked away from the crowd, the noise fading behind him. He had to meet Jenkins. They had to finalize their own impossible plan for the Whispering Stone Circle.
The choices had been made. Kiera had made hers. Now, they had to make theirs. And the anatomy of their choice would determine whether the coming dawn brought understanding or annihilation.