Page 44 of Mane Brew

They’ve been watching us. Tracking us. Using our own methods against us.

The irony isn’t lost on me.

“Clear the rooms!” I bark the order as my people move deeper. The sounds of Elio’s breach echo from above—glass shattering, screams cut short, the thud of bodies hitting the floor. From the corridor, Veren’s foxes move like shadows, quick and efficient.

A Preserver agent bursts from a side door, magic crackling around his hands. Two of my lions intercept before he can complete the spell, taking him down with brutal efficiency. Another agent tries to flee toward the back—a panther drops from the rafters, silent and lethal, ending the escape attempt before it begins.

“Secondary rooms secured!” The call comes from Aslan’s group. “Three detained, no casualties!”

“Maintenance corridor clear!” Veren’s confirmation crackles through the communication charm. “Found some kind of laboratory. You’re going to want to see this.”

I push deeper into the warehouse. Past the operations center with its disturbing maps. Past holding cells that make my skin crawl—bare stone, magical dampeners, the lingering scent of fear and desperation. Past a room filled with crates that Elio’s people are already searching.

The laboratory is worse than I expected.

Contaminated brewing ingredients on one table, arranged in careful rows with labels I recognize from Zeph’s supplier lists. Samples of magical compounds on another—the same compounds that created the dead zones. Research notes on destabilizing living magic scattered across every surface, covered in annotations that chart progress and failure and refinement.

This is where they developed the techniques that attacked her brewery.

The thought fuels my stride. Something primal snarls in my chest, eager to tear.

I find what I’m looking for in the next room.

A witch in her fifties hunches over a workstation, frantically stuffing papers into a bag. Her magic flares as I enter—defensive wards snapping into place around her, buying seconds at most.

“Nowhere to run.” I keep my voice level. Controlled. “The building is surrounded. Your people are being detained. You can come quietly, or you can make this difficult.”

“You don’t understand what you’re doing.” She backs toward the far wall, bag clutched to her chest. “The Severing exists for a reason. The matings were chaos—uncontrollable, dangerous⁠—”

“The matings were partnerships.” I advance slowly. Give her time to realize the futility. “People who loved each other. Who chose each other.”

“People who became too powerful for anyone to manage!” Desperation bleeds through the defiance. “You think this is about ideology? This is about survival. About maintaining the structures that keep our world functional.”

“About maintaining power for families like yours.”

Her face goes pale. The wards flicker—her concentration breaking.

I close the distance in three strides. Her magic crackles against my skin, sharp and bitter, but it’s not enough. Not against a shifter who’s spent years developing resistance to magical disruption. Not against a man whose ancestor was mated to a witch before the Severing destroyed everything.

My hand closes around her arm. The bag falls. Papers scatter across the floor.

“Take her.” I shove her toward the two lions who’ve followed me in. “Secure her with the others. I want those documents preserved.”

The interrogation room is a converted storage space—stone walls, single light, and a chair that’s seen better decades. One name recurs across a dozen of the documents we recovered, always in the same elegant, anonymous hand: the Architect. No signature. No other identifier. Just a title that makes the hair on my arms rise.

The saboteur sits in that chair, hands bound with magical dampeners, her earlier defiance crumbled into resignation. A truth ward hums faintly around the room—Network standard for interrogations, not foolproof, but it makes outright lies costly. She’s decided, it seems, that partial cooperation costs her less than a ward-triggered migraine and a longer sentence. Caius stands against the far wall, arms crossed, wolf’s patience giving nothing away. Elio lounges by the door, noting every twitch and tell with the casual attention of a predator who enjoys the hunt.

I pace. I don’t usually pace—pacing is undignified, inefficient, a waste of energy that could be better spent. But the documents we found are still being processed, and the witch knows things that can’t wait for paperwork.

“The Architect.” I stop in front of her. Hold her gaze. “She’s mentioned in the papers that were in your possession. Who is she?”

“I don’t know her real name.” The words come out dull, slowly dragged out by the truth spell. “None of us do. She communicates through intermediaries. Designs the operations. We just execute.”

“But you’ve met her.”

“Once. When I was recruited.” Her eyes flicker—memory, fear, an emotion I can’t name. “She’s old. Powerful. From one of the founding families. She said the Severing was necessary—that the matings were creating an imbalance that threatened everything our world was built on.”

“And you believed her?”