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The letter arrived on a Tuesday, sealed in pale pink wax stamped with a spray of lilies. It was carried into the Blackwood council chamber by a trembling footman who clearly understood, on some instinctive level, that he was delivering a grenade disguised as stationery.

Aria sat at the head of the obsidian table, her fingers steepled beneath her chin, her gold-crimson eyes tracking the envelope's journey across the room with the detached patience of a sniper waiting for wind conditions to stabilize. Around her, the twelve elders of the Blackwood Pack shifted in their carved mahogany chairs, their ceremonial robes rustling like dry leaves. They had been arguing...