Chapter 38. Ghosts in the Walls

The junkyard was never quiet. Even when the Crownless weren’t speaking, the metal seemed to breathe—old pipes creaking, chains rattling in the wind, rust shifting under the weight of memory. But when the scout said, “Hale’s safehouse,” Riven’s hand froze mid-cigarette, ash scattering across her scarred knuckles. She hadn’t heard that name spoken aloud in three years, two months, sixteen days. Her throat closed around nothing as the scout’s words hung in the air—Ravens, Vultures, raid—while her pulse hammered against the wolf tattoo on her wrist, the one she’d gotten the night after she’d buried him. The one she’d promised herself she’d burn off someday.

“What safehouse?” one of the riders demanded, voice sharp.

The scout’s eyes cut toward Riven again. “The one on East Hollow Road. The brick place with the old wolf mural.”

Kenzie whistled low, swinging her chain lazily. “That dump? Thought it got gutted when Hale went down.”

Riven’s voice cracked before she co