Hades


    "There''s no such wing," I said carefully, watching her face. "Not on any blueprint. Not in any schematic. I''ve had them all reviewed."


    Eve turned to me fully now, expression shifting from tight control to something far more visceral—shock.


    "No…" she breathed. "That''s not possible. I''ve been there. I lived there. It was the primary containment sector for Hollowed units. I was kept there after my wolf was taken. That was where i waa experimented on.Sector D. West of the archivalb. It''s real."


    The silence was heavy, my jaw clenching.


    Silence expanded like a vacuum, swallowing every breath in the room.


    "If it existed," Gallint said first, calm and certain, "we''d know."


    "And if it did," Ss added, his tone clipped, "it would be on the schematics. Lunar Heights was mapped down to the plumbing before the Valmonts ever imed it. We''ve reviewed those maps a hundred times."


    Kael folded his arms slowly. "I''m with them on this one. Eve, if Faculty Fourteen existed inside the Heights, it would''ve pinged during the data sweep. The servers we tapped—everything is centralized. There''s nothingbeled as that. Nothing even simr."


    I could see it happening in real time.


    Eve''s entire stance shifted.


    Her arms dropped.


    Her fingers curled.


    Her lips parted, but no words came out at first—only the sound of her breath catching, too fast, too shallow. She muttered something under it. Again. Then again. Her gaze dropped to the floor.


    "They would take me there," she said, not looking at anyone. " Always cold. Always quiet. I remember the lights. They buzzed. And the smell—it was like... copper and static. I know it was real. I know it was—"


    "Eve," I cut in, gently but firmly, stepping toward her, "were you ever… conscious? When they took you there?"


    She stopped.


    Completely.


    Her mouth opened again, but this time no words came. Just the growing wideness of her eyes as the memory fractured and rearranged behind them.


    "No…" she whispered. "I… No, I wasn''t. Not once. They always sedated me."


    The realization mmed into her with terrifying rity.


    "They didn''t want me to know where it was."


    The entire room seemed to lean forward.


    "Because it''s not in the Heights," Kael said softly.


    Eve turned to him, barely breathing.


    "There''s a secondary facility," he continued, voice tight. "A shadow site. Off-grid. Unlisted. Hidden outside the Lunar Heights perimeter."


    "That''s where they kept the Hollowed," Ss added grimly. "Where they keep her—Ellen."


    My fists clenched. "That''s where the horn is."


    Eve''s voice cracked through the tension, sharper than before. "And we''ve been watching the wrong ce."


    Kael swore under his breath.


    Gallinti muttered, "Every n, every theory... all based on an illusion."


    "They fed us the curated version of their pce," I said, anger curling hot in my chest. "While the real war is still happening in the shadows."


    For a long moment, no one moved.


    No one breathed.


    Only the low hum of machinery and the frozen footage on the monitor gave any illusion that time hadn''t stopped altogether.


    "We missed it," Kael said finally, his voice t. "All this time, and we were staring at the decoy."


    Montegue pinched the bridge of his nose, his aged fingers trembling slightly. "We were fools to assume the Valmonts would leave their most damning sins on disy. We knew they were strategic… but this?"


    "It was right in front of us," Ss muttered. "The calm. The stillness. The symmetry. We took it as truth because we wanted it to be. We wanted to believe we were in control."


    "Every floor n. Every internal feed." Gallint''s voice was tight with frustration. "All sanitized."


    Eve''s eyes never left the screen, even as the tension swirled around her. "They made sure I couldn''t remember," she whispered. "Even now, I can''t visualize the route. They sedated me to keep the location secret."


    "We need to find it," I said, stepping forward. "We need that facility. Now."


    "But how?" Kael asked. "If even Eve has no memory—"


    "There''s someone else," she cut in.


    We turned to her.


    Eve''s eyes narrowed, her voice clipped and cold. "Felicia."


    A beat of silence.


    "What?" Ss asked.


    "She had contact with Silverpine," Eve continued. "She''s the one who forged the alliance. She had Silverpine tech hidden in her quarters. She yed all of us—and she knew how to navigate both worlds. If anyone''s hiding details about that second facility... it''s her."


    "She imed she barely spoke to the Valmonts," I said, jaw tight.


    Eve''s mouth curled into a humorless smile. "And she also imed she was a loyal Obsidian matron. How many lies has she told? A dozen? A hundred?"


    "She could''ve been in directmunication with them this entire time," Kael muttered. "Feeding them intel. Coordinating cover-ups."


    "Or even helping them scrub the feeds," I added. "If she had tech from Silverpine, she might have known how to bypass our virus."


    Montegue straightened in his chair, voice firm. "Then we question her. Thoroughly. No more politeness. No more blind trust."


    "She''ll resist," Eve said. "She''s not stupid. She''s been ying a long game. But if we push in the right ces…"


    "She''ll crack," I finished.


    Kael exhaled, already halfway to the exit. "I''ll bring her in."


    Eve''s eyes remained locked on the monitor, her voice colder than winter steel.


    "We''re running out of time. Every second we waste, that horn gets further from us… and the more Darius perfects him ns for what is toe."


    I watched her, the way her jaw clenched, the storm brewing just behind herposure.


    This was no longer about politics or pride.


    Eve turned to me.


    Like there was no one else in the room.


    Not Kael, not Montegue, not the councilmen murmuring behind her. Not the screens still flickering with curated lies. Just me. Her gaze cut through every distraction like it was paper,nding on me with a force that knocked the breath from my chest.


    Her eyes—gods, those eyes—were no longer just sharp. They were lit from within. With fury. With pain. With something so ancient and knowing it made my bones ache.


    "We have to win this, Hades." Her voice was intimate, but not in a sensual way—no warmth, no softness. It was war in a whisper. The final breath before the de fell. The truth a soul tells when it has nothing left to lose.


    "We have to win this, Hades," she said again, slower this time. "Because if we don''t... they won''t just erase us. They''ll rewrite us. Every child, every bloodline, every truth we bled for—gone. Folded into their story. Their design. I want it to sink in, what is going to happen if that man wins. Look at what he has not to his own people, you have no idea what he will do to lycans."


    The whole room nodded.