You aren’t letting me, I project back, my mental voice hardening into diamond. I am the Luna. I am the Anchor. If the Shield goes into the dark, the Anchor goes with him. We do this together, or we don’t do it at all.
He stares at me for a long, agonizing moment. Then, slowly, he nods. Together.
The deep labs beneath the Academy are a crucible of biological and magical synthesis.
Asher and Elara sit at the central table, surrounded by banks of humming centrifuges and glowing vials of golden fluid. They look impossibly young, their small faces pale, dark circles bruised beneath their eyes. But their hands are steady.
They are weaving the Resonance Catalyst into a viral vector, binding the magical compound to the base sequence of wolf DNA. It is delicate, agonizing work. Every time Elara
