an; forewarning: this chapter was a hot mess and I am obviously a very thirsty author because i spent like 2 pages talking about Quentin's shoulders. Anyway enjoy.

There were five on the stage, warm light beaming down on a variant of faces—but each adorned in matching suits and ties. Two gracefully tall women stood with violins tucked beneath their chins, one straight-postured pianist perched on the edge of his bench—and then there was Quentin, drowning the room in that beautiful yawning sound. Deep, like the heartbeat of the earth, the pulse of a magnificent giant.

He wore a suit all the same, but his magnificence went unrivaled. He was made for the camera in that suit, his broad square shoulders fit perfectly into its cut. His hair was combed back, trimmed short and neat on the sides—nothing like the wild haywire curls he'd worn in the snow last they met. And the dark, crude beard that made him look ten years older—that was gone too, back to the short bristle that shadowed his face a deep shade of dusk.

He played beside a man that challenged every feature with charming opposition of his own—a strong square jaw and fair hair that fell down over his shoulders, and a cello of a different brand, tipped back in his lap. If Quentin was night, then this man was surely day. And Day was plucking his cords with with facile efforts, creating a deep rhythmic bass for Quentin to climb. The sound of them together was like an a-capella; the other instruments were playing too, but Jaylin couldn't hear them. They were the earth in default. The sound of ocean wind in his ears, while those cellos were sirens, hungry and inbound and calling him to the hull of the ship.

The piece was smooth, a gentle warm-up. And when it was over, the room had quieted in anticipation—denying themselves the liberty to clap. And for the first time, Jaylin noticed the crowd that had settled into the dozens of round dinner tables, checkering the ballroom floor. Some sipped from their glasses and some whispered in the sudden quiet, but most just watched. Jaylin searched the congregation, seeking the faces he knew from the ones he didn't. But the moment the music started again, his eyes were to the stage.

A low, steady thrum came from the cellist at Quentin's side. It took Jaylin a moment to realize it wasn't the sound of a drum, but the pluck of his strings. Quick fingers slid along the fingerboard. Patient and steady as they bounced from chords to chord, and then Quentin brought his bow to the belly of his cello. The moment it touched the strings, it was like that beast of wood and wires had possessed Quentin Bronx. He was no longer man, but music itself.

He slashed across the strings like his bow was a killing blade, and a fierce kind of sound bled out from the wounds he made. The beautiful chaotic cries of his mastery, rolling around the walls of the ballroom. He played cello in a way Jaylin had never seen before. With the speed, with the veracity of an electric guitar—or the haste of a violinist who'd lost themselves too deeply to the song in their hands. But with it, Quentin provided a sound that rippled Jaylin's skin with goosebumps, quivered in the walls his chest. He could feel the vibration in every rib and he crossed his arms over them in a sad effort to squelch it.

But in time, Jaylin forgot all about that ticklish feeling. The longer Quentin played those wild, beautiful notes, the more he welcomed that unexpected thrill. His music took a collective breath from every lung in the room, because Quentin played with a rage that didn't seem orthadox. One no one had expected. He tore along the strings of his cello, working the fingerboard with trickling variants of sound. His music lifted and danced its way down again in perfect disarray and he moved with it, hair falling over his face, body swaying, fingers quivering as they scattered up and down in quick, perfect placement. Jaylin hadn't noticed that the man beside him had joined in, not until their fingers synchronized and their music collided, and they were playing notes so rich, he felt his heart stutter in his chest. They played until they both sheened with sweat. Until they'd shredded their bows. Until the tempo quickened and the notes climbed and they played a tone so sharp, Jaylin expected every glass in the room to shatter.

And then both at once, they ripped away from the strings. Quentin patted the belly of his cello and the man beside him plucked his strings to the tempo, until one last note ricocheted from the ballroom's orotund walls, and the stage lights went dark.

The last thing Jaylin saw was the white of their bows cross like parried swords, grins on their faces.

Then Quentin was gone, and so was the music.

When the lights came back on, it was the violins who had taken their seats this time. They played with the melody of the piano—a beautiful sound, but a slow, deep breath compared to what they'd all just heard.

A few guests had taken to the empty space on the ballroom floor, spinning and dancing to the music, but Jaylin's eyes were on the swaying curtains at the back of the stage, where the cellists had stepped out for a break.

He could still feel Quentin's song buzzing in his fingertips, and this time, he couldn't ignore it. So he escaped to the right of the room, where the dinner tables stopped and a slew of drinks had been provided beside a vast buffet of food, towers of sparkling drinks and catered entrees scattered in disarray from one end to the other.

He didn't feel hungry—not after that. His eyes passed down the table to bottles of brown and golden liquor and Jaylin wondered if he could disguise his drink in a soda can to keep Matt off of his back. But werewolves didn't drink soda, did they? Maybe he could pretend it was water. Or maybe he'd just drink it here so no one would notice.

Then Jaylin started at a touch to his shoulder.

"Non-alcoholics at the other end," Felix said.

Jaylin shrugged away his hand. "I'm old enough to drink."

Felix hummed and looked to the drinks at the distant side of the table. "Stay away from the blue," he told Jaylin. "May be drinkin' age, but ye' never drank with wolves before."

"Why the blue?" Jaylin asked. "What's wrong with it?"

"We call it midnight," he said. "But there's a rule we got about midnight: if ye' want to stay you, don't touch the blue."

He swiped a bottle of beer and then the gangling man stalked off to the others. Jaylin could feel Tisper's eyes on him from the table where they'd gathered, and he shrugged the feeling away as he followed the edge of the buffet to the array of drinks.

Crystal glasses had been stacked, rim-down on the table top. Jaylin selected a scotch glass and reached for a bottle of vodka, with a shimmering silver label. It was all too exotic, too luxuriously foreign to him. He had no idea what any of these names meant, or what kind of liquor these fancy bottles beheld. But one thing was for certain: there was something awfully distracting about the blue drink Felix had mentioned.

He could see them at the far end of the table—only one bottle open. Maybe two-fingers of the florid blue liquid missing. He watched bubbles rise in the cobalt, twisting the lid from his bottle of vodka.

Then a hand was plucking it away.

He turned to snap at Matt for not minding his own god damn business, but—

"Try this one." Quentin's voice settled into his ears, deep and rich like the song from his cello. He reached across the table for a different bottle—this one nearly empty—and tipped it into Jaylin's glass.

Jaylin was afraid to look at him. He watched the light glitter in his glass. "What does it matter? It all tastes like hairspray."

"No one drinks vodka for the taste," Quentin said. Still, Jaylin wouldn't look at him. But from the corner of his eye, he saw Quentin reach across the table for a second bottle. He poured a hefty share into Jaylin's cup. A citrus juice by the look of the pulp floating at the top. "You look strong," Quentin told him. "A perk to being what we are. We're always in our prime health... if we treat ourselves right."

Jaylin could smell the grapefruit juice in his glass. "I don't like greyhounds," he said.

"Drink it," Quentin told him anyway. "It's good for fatigue. You look tired."

There was a sound in his voice that tugged at Jaylin. He wanted to look up, but he kept his head down. He couldn't afford to be waned by that look of his.

Then he felt those warm fingers under his chin, guiding him up. And whether he wanted to or not, Jaylin was staring into those endless brown eyes. The deep, creased brows, the sweat-slick black hair. Quentin didn't ask Jaylin why he hadn't called. He didn't reprimand him for not returning his texts. For not responding to his orders when it came to Qamar and the council. He didn't lecture Jaylin for running away.

He just looked him in the eye and said, "I've missed you, Jaylin."

Then Quentin dropped his hand and made his way back to the stage.

They played two more sets after that. Music that, despite how much he tried to ignore it, drove Jaylin nearly to tears. Just nearly.

The table they'd chosen was large enough to seat eight people. Alex, Sadie, Tisper, Matt, Izzy, Elizaveta and occasionally, Felix, when he wasn't lingering by the drinks table or fraternizing with beautiful were-girls in too-tight dresses. With Jaylin himself included, one seat remained, until into it, Izzy reeled in a young woman in a lace cocktail dress. She had a soft face, round eyes and plump lips—and black, straight hair that hung like silk behind her pale, delicate ears.

She gave a shy bow of her head and smiled.

 "This is Yui," Izzy said. "She's from an Eastern pack."

Even just the sound of it sent a trill marching up Jaylin's spine. He must have been looking at her strangely, because Yui's lips formed an o, and her head dipped again in a small nod. "I've heard of you," she said. "The lichund who saved an alpha and his entire pack."

Jaylin's eyes narrowed. "So why aren't you trying to stick me with bane like your buddies?" Tisper swatted him on the arm.

"Not all Eastern packs share Ziya's beliefs," Izzy said.

Yui nodded again. "I don't mean any harm," she said. "I came from Japan. I searched a long time for a pack that shared my ideals. And then I found Nicon." She gestured to a table nearest the stage, where a man stood before his friends, glass lifted in a toast. He could easily match Felix in height, but his skin was a dark russet shade, his hair—which down, could easily reach his navel—was bound back in a low-set ponytail.

"He does not allow lichund bounties in his territory," she said. "Nicon believes the lichund are our guardians. For the last ten years he has been trying to convince the Alpha Union that creatures like you should be celebrated, not killed for the sake of bounties. When I met Nicon, he was losing faith in his believes, Mr. Maxwell." She looked nervous there for a moment, a small smile on her lips as she aligned her cutlery on its napkin. "When word arrived to the East about what you'd done—how you had risked your life for your friends and your pack. Well, you are the reason Nicon and so many others defied Ziya's orders and traveled to the exposition." Again, Yui lowered her head. "It is an honor to meet you, lichund." Then she placed a hand over her mouth a blushed. "I'm sorry. Jaylin. It is an honor to meet you, Jaylin."

Yui stayed a while after that. Jaylin didn't mind her, but he hated the pedestal she put him on. Part of that night was still a blur to him. He remembered Tisper in the cell, and the pain in him, like every bone in his body was cracking in half, sending shards and splinters into his organs. He remembered running through forest in the pouring rain. He remembered how powerful he felt—how much it ached when those claws struck his jaw. The slightest scars still rose on the angle of the bone.

More than anything, Jaylin remembered the look on Quentin's face. That frightened expression. The one he put there. He tried not to idle on the thought, but his eyes found Quentin across the room—laughing and drinking with Leo and a few other faces Jaylin couldn't identify. His locked onto Jaylin in the briefest moment of eye-contact before Jaylin severed the connection and turned his attention back to his food.

Tisper had filled a plate from the buffet table—roasted chicken, slow-cooked beef, lemon-peppered salmon. But Jaylin's appetite had shriveled since March. He remembered before, how hungry he was and how often he ate after the bad moon. But that hunger had turned to meek little snacks at night. Maybe a burger during the day if he felt like forking out the money for the expensive organic delivery.

He could feel Tisper's attention on him. It was a burning kind of feeling. He hoped she wouldn't say anything, that she'd just let him be for now, but expectedly, she gave him a little nudge.

"A few bites?" she said. "Just give me that, Jay. So I don't have to worry."

Begrudgingly, he ate.

Afterward, Izzy offered to walk them back to their rooms, a drunken skip in her step. She stopped at the foyer, beside the checkout desk and pointed to the poster on the wall while the receptionist fetched their room cards.

"This is the itinerary," she said. "Today was just the welcome dinner, but if you noticed there was only about a hundred of us. That's cause the actual exposition events don't really start until tomorrow—the welcoming dinner is just kind of how we waste time while we wait for the others. They travel from all over, so getting here can take a day or two. There will be a feast every night, but they'll be a bit different. We never eat the same thing twice at these events. Tomorrow is the reception—that's when everyone shows up and the celebration begins."

"How many people we talkin'?" Matt asked.

"I dunno," Izzy shrugged. "Not everyone can make it. Usually around five-hundred, I'd say."

Sadie gawked. "This place can house that many people? But they were out of rooms when we—"

"Qamar booked the guest-list," Izzy said. "She doesn't take outsiders into account, and definitely not human guests, so I'd say you guy got lucky. Back before all the drama with Ziya, there used to be fifteen-hundred wolves who met at the exposition every year." She gave a sad little sigh. "I have so many friends in New York, Maryland, Illinois. I'm not sure when I'll get to see them again."

"I didn't see Qamar," Tisper noted. "If she hosted this whole thing, shouldn't she be here?"

"She was," Izzy said, taking the keys that had been laid out on the service desk. "She never comes to the small events. You'll see her maybe one night out of the week. Most of the packs haven't arrived yet. If you noticed, Imani wasn't around either."

She dangled the keys in front of her eyes and handed them off to each person. "Felix," she said, and he swiped it from her like a cat batting at string of yarn. Missing once, and then yanking it from her fingers.

Izzy snorted. "Are you sure you can make it up by yourself?"

Felix wavered a bit, registering her words much too slowly. He'd had more to drink than anyone. Even Jaylin, who'd gone back for two more greyhounds after he'd somehow acquired the taste for a drink he always hated.

When finally her words caught up to him, Felix shook his head. "Fuck off," he grumbled and as he turned to go off in the wrong direction, Tisper reeled him back hard by the sleeve on his shoulder.

"I'll make sure he gets to the right room," she said.

"Sure, sure." Izzy passed a key to Tisper next. One for Sadie and Alex and one for Jaylin himself. "Get some sleep," she said. "You guys stuck out like sore thumbs tonight, so we're going out tomorrow for something at least somewhat decent to wear for the rest of the week. Tomorrow night you'll meet with Qamar," she said. "I'm sure it'll help your case to show up looking like you care."

"Our case?" Sadie asked. "But we didn't do anything wrong. I thought we established that when your guys came to get the big hulking bear-wolf monster on Lisa's front lawn?"

"Well," said Izzy with a deep sigh, "our laws require everything be documented formally. So even if we're totally off the hook, we still have to give Qamar every detail."

"But you don't keep documents," Tisper insisted.

"They do," Alex said. "In the water-activated ink Quentin showed you. There's an entire library full of blank binders. They have this humidity room. They take the books in there and after a few minutes, the ink shows up."

"Yeah, they're pretty good at writing what they can't see," said Izzy.

"But what's the point of archiving this shit?" Matt asked. "Ain't like anyone's been in our situation before."

"Yeah," Tisper said, "how many documented cases are there?"

Izzy hummed and bit her inner-cheek. "I'm not sure. But there've been a few times that I know of where a human has slipped up and revealed something about the werewolf society to someone who wasn't meant to know. There've been a few cases of assault against alphas. Mutiny against the queens, things like that. And though we all know you guys did exactly what you needed to do that night, some of those things still went against code. They broke the agreements you signed. Some of the things you did were just plain taboo." She waved a finger to Matt. "For instance, you killed a wolf." Then one to Sadie. "You used witchcraft to interfere with werewolf matters—which isn't exactly against the rules, they just really don't like it." Then Izzy pointed a finger to herself and frowned deeply. "And I attacked Ziya's humans. Eliza too."

"So we're going to be punished for—for trying to help?" Sadie asked.

"Qamar doesn't like humans all that much," Izzy confessed. "But she was the one who stood for the protection of humankind. I've always admired her for that. So don't worry, I'm sure she'll be fair. She wants to meet with us to get the story straight before she makes her final decision on how to act over the mess Ziya made. Qamar has no interest in sentencing us to our doom or she'd have done it a long time ago."

"I hope you're right," Sadie said with a frown. "Doom isn't my cup of tea."

"Bullshit, in't it?" Felix slurred. "But guess it wouldn't be the first time I've ended up in handcuffs after a party."

"Okay, come on." Tisper gave him a push around—in the right direction this time. "Before you knock out in the hall and I have to drag your giant ass into the elevator."

"Yeah," Sadie said, hooking one arm with Alex and the other with Jaylin. "Jay looks a little out of it. Let's get him to his room." 

Jaylin didn't protest—with the added stress of the meeting on the horizon, all he wanted was isolation. Maybe another greyhound.

"Wait." Matt said, looking muddled. "I don't have a key."

Izzy turned her eyes to the woman at the service desk, who must have been eavesdropping on the conversation, because she bristled a bit and began typing away on her keyboard.

"Ah, yes. The keycard's been assigned to your roommate already. He went up about an hour ago."

A look of dread pulled at Matt's freckled face and he swung around to Sadie. "Can I stay with you guys?"

"Nope," she said, and Jaylin stumbled over his own feet as she tugged him towards the elevator.