“There’s nothing wrong with understanding the choices of your opponent,” Silas said loftily. “If we don’t examine them, we won’t anticipate their next move.”

“Let it go, Connor,” Monroe said. “Silas, now is not the time.”

Silas grumbled under his breath while Connor continued to glare at him.

“They set a wraith on him.” Ansel shuddered. “Longer than I’ve ever seen. When it was over, I couldn’t believe he was still conscious. They said he could choose his fate. That he still controlled his destiny.”

“What was his answer?” Monroe asked.

“After the wraith he couldn’t speak. I was surprised he’d even survived it. It had him for so much longer. . . .” He curled in on himself, making a soft retching sound.

Cold crept over me, like frost forming in my bones. My limbs were shuddering, out of my control.

My mother is dead. Ren tortured. And it’s all my fault.

“They took him away.” Ansel wiped spittle away from his mouth. He tried to take a sip of tea, but the cup shook too violently in his grasp. “I don’t know where. But if he doesn’t give the answer they want to hear, I’m sure they’ll kill him.”

Monroe made a quiet sound of grief. His eyes moved to the flames in the hearth, his mind going to a place far from this room.

“And then they brought me to the altar,” Ansel said.

I extended my hands across the table, hoping he’d take them. He glanced at my upturned palms and then looked away. I pulled my empty hands back, feeling hollow inside.

“Lumine said the children of Naomi Tor couldn’t be trusted,” Ansel said. “She put her hands on my chest. I thought I was being torn in two. I heard myself howling, saw my wolf form floating in front of me, and then it was on fire. Burning, burning. The fur smoking. I could smell it, feel it, being burned alive. And then the wolf was ash. Lumine waved her hands and the ash blew away. And I knew. I could feel that the wolf was gone. I was nothing.”

“Being alive isn’t nothing.” Monroe had come up behind him. He put his hand on Ansel’s shoulder. Ansel shuddered but didn’t pull away. “We’re only human and we think life is worth living.”

“I’m not human,” Ansel said. “I’m a Guardian. I was a Guardian. I don’t know what I am now.”

“I could turn you back,” I said suddenly. “You can be a Guardian again.”

“No. I’ve been unmade.” Ansel’s face twisted with rage. “That’s what Lumine said. She told them all. I can only be re-created through the Old Magics. An alpha cannot turn me. I’m cursed.”

“We’ll help you,” Monroe said. “We can teach you other ways to fight. You don’t have to be a wolf to be strong.”

“This war would have ended a long time ago if only the wolves were strong,” Ethan muttered.

“I don’t want to fight any other way! I want to be a wolf again.” Ansel turned to Monroe, a fever burning in his eyes. “Can you do that? I know you have magic.”

Monroe was silent.

“You said you wanted to help me.” Ansel was frantic. “That’s what I need. Calla, make them help me.”

“We don’t make Guardians,” Monroe said finally. “We don’t alter nature.”

“What are you talking about?” I asked. “Ansel’s nature is the wolf. What’s unnatural is what they did to him.”

“That may be the case,” Monroe said. “But frankly, we don’t have the means to undo it. We won’t destroy another creature to make him whole again.”

“What you do mean, destroy another creature?” Shay asked.

“We’d have to take the essence of another wolf—killing the animal in the process—to give your brother what he wants.”

My skin crawled. “I don’t understand.”

Silas looked up from his notes. “Guardians were created by years of experimentation with the laws of the natural world. The Keepers have always been fond of bending nature to their will. Guardians were one of the first demonstrations of the power they’d gained by allying with the Nether realm. They took animals and people, trying for years to blend the two and create the ultimate warriors. There were many, many failures. Mangled bodies, mutilated creatures not fit for this world or any other. And then there were Guardians. But the creation, the creatures, they are abominations against nature itself. The very reason Searchers fight against the Keepers.”

I stared at him. “Did you just call me an abomination?”

Silas looked me up and down. “Yes. Yes, I did.”

“That’s enough, Silas,” Monroe said.

My skin felt like insects crawled over me, stinging, biting, leaving my flesh raw. “Is that really how Guardians were first made?”

I thought of the story I’d been told as a child. The first Keeper—a noble warrior, injured, dying, saved only by the help of a lone wolf. The reward of being elevated. The bond of service and love that couldn’t be broken.

“It is. Did they have a pretty tale to offer you about your origin?” Silas quipped, obviously wanting to say more, but he was silenced by a glare from Monroe.

“More lies,” Shay whispered. He stared at his own hands. I wondered if he regretted being turned now that he’d heard this truth—that my kind had been born not as a reward for loyalty, but as a violent twisting of the natural order. One of the first acts of so many horrors for which the Keepers were known.