We are leaving the human war behind. We are leaving the political machinations, the UN treaties, the fragile alliances. We are returning to the Blackthorn Academy, to the ancient, scarred earth of the Pacific Northwest.
We are going home to build a cage for a god.
The deep subterranean labs beneath the Blackthorn Academy are a sanctuary of cold, blue light and the hum of ancient, dormant ley-lines.
It has been forty-eight hours since we returned from Geneva. The Academy is on total lockdown. The integration school is closed. The pack is confined to the residential wings. The surface is quiet, but beneath the earth, the war is raging.
I stand in the center of the primary laboratory, my arms crossed tightly over my chest. My left arm is in its carbon-fiber brace, the nerve damage flaring
