Rapid.

What in the Peace and Fire did he want with her?!

Jett felt more anger than fear as she was escorted through the food market with Rapid's goon right up beside her every step of the way. One of his paws snaked around her waist to make it seem as though they were a couple just out for a jaunt, and her fur prickled at the unwanted touch, but she didn't dare try anything here and now. One wrong move and that knife would tear into her ribcage. After everything she'd been through, she wasn't about to get herself killed by some thug.

So she went along for the ride, for now. Jett noticed two other foxkin shadowing them as they made their way through the streets of Gjornharr District, but soon they shepherded her away from the busier parts of the district, away from the residences and the markets and down a sloping, grey mud rampway that led to a series of understreets.

Here they entered a claustrophobic warren of machine shops, printing presses, and cloth-weaver mills, the scents of inks and dyes filling Jett's nostrils as she tried to figure out where in hellfangs she was being taken.

After guiding her through a series of twists and turns, the trio of foxkin guided her to the bunker-like structure of another machine shop, a low, oblong storefront clanging with industry and the din of voices.

"Follow me," the foxkin beside her said quietly, his arm uncoiling from around her waist and his knife returning to its sheathe. He stepped out in front of her, and she risked a glance back to find the other two had pulled in close behind to ensure she didn't run.

With a resigned huff, she flicked an impatient paw at the machine shop. "Let's get on with it then. I haven't got all day."

"See if you still have the attitude when Rapid's done with you," the foxkin growled back, anger flashing in his eyes before he turned away and led them to a squat metal side door. He produced a scent key from the pocket of his kilt, inserted it into the door lock, and was greeted by a clunk of disengaging mechanisms.

Jett scowled and allowed herself to be shepherded inside, anger and frustration overriding any fear she could have (and perhaps should have) felt. Another muck-furred female foxkin skulked inside the entrance, a heavy armbow aimed as they crossed the threshold. She waved the group through with a grunt, and Jett was propelled forward through the dingy side passage and into a sweltering workshop.

A low, sprawling, hangar-like space, it was divided up into small chambers and packed with Rapid's associates, lit by smouldering braziers and the glow of smelting furnaces. The grind of metal filled her ears from the machine shops, the scorching scent mixing with cooked meat, muskbrew, and dark beer into a smothering cocktail.

The heat made her pant lightly, but her companions seemed not to notice, striding breezily through the machinery. Rough-furred and scarred foxkin shot her suspicious looks as she swept past them, but it wasn't until they turned a corner into a curtained-off back room that she really discovered the danger that awaited her.

Rapid stood over a broad desk littered with copper-etched maps of Wildhearth, and even at a swift glance, she could pick out half a dozen different districts flensed down to their constituent parts. The albino foxkin looked almost manic, his eyes wild and an alarmingly fresh scar running from one lean shoulder down across his chest. It looked like a ragged wound—a savage, rippling claw mark. Anger rolled off him in tangible waves, and a heavy, black-hafted axe rested across the table in front of him.

He looked up at her, and it was then that she allowed a sliver of fear to ebb to the surface.

"Fangs'n'fire, I've been lookin' forward to this," he growled, one paw curling around the woven mesh grip of his axe. Jett took a step back; gulped. Her relationship with Rapid, while a little frosty at times, had never been hostile.

Until now, it seemed.

There was a vicious scrape as he picked up the axe, and in a single snarling leap, he vaulted the broad table and slammed into her.

Jett let out a yelp of panic, the foxkin guards parting effortlessly to allow their leader's rage to run its course as he rammed her back into the wall, one claw fastened around her throat with the other holding the axe, drawn back to swing.

"Rapid, WAIT!" she screamed, scrabbling in his grip. She was a little taller than him, but sheer bloody-minded fury lent strength to the gang leader's grip. At the last moment, she managed to squirm loose just enough to jerk her head sideways as the axe swung down.

A screeching clang of metal on metal rang in her ears as the axe head ripped into the wall plate where her skull had been an instant before. She managed to wrench herself free of his grip and tumbled into a forward roll out of reach, dragging her longclaw from its sheathe as she came back to her feet. Armbows rose from the guards, but a snarl from Rapid stopped them.

"Keep 'em locked," he ordered, his blazing eyes not leaving Jett. "This one's mine."

"Rapid, what in the Peace are you doing?!" she asked desperately. "What did I do?"

"Oh-oh, I don't know, but whatever it was, helping you was the worst mistake I've made in my life."

He lunged forward, swinging for her again. Mind racing, Jett scampered back to avoid the whistling swipe of the axe, diving and rolling her way across the table. Copper maps clattered off in all directions as she scrabbled her way across to place the table between herself and the berserk foxkin. She raised one paw pleadingly.

"Rapid, there is more going on here than you know, and if you kill me, there's nothing we can do to stop it!"

Rapid's lips drew back in a snarl, revealing his canines. "So maybe you wanna explain why two days after I gave you your gear, wolfkin came ripping through my place? You wanna tell me why Iburr's lying in his bar with his throat ripped out, eh? Maybe you wanna explain why half my people got butchered by those mongrels?!" He pointed to the ragged scar on his chest. "Maybe you want to explain what in the Peace'n'Fire the Silk's attack dogs doing out here, eh?"

When she didn't answer straight away, he began prowling towards her again, axe swirling murderously. Jett hesitated, trying to formulate her thoughts into some level of coherence. Her heart lurched at the image of the deerkin bartender lying in a pool of blood at the claws of the wolfkin, but she forced it aside with an effort of will.

"Rapid, there is so much more to this than you and me," she said, edging away from him with her paw still raised. "My family, your people, Iburr, it's all collateral damage. The wolfkin are trying to cover something up, and it all started with that felkin, Zanzihar."

"You mean that Silk scummer they found cut to ribbons in Palharr?"

"The same."

Rapid finally stopped moving, cocking his head to one side. "Keep talking, bright eyes."

She had one chance at this—one chance to convince the gang leader not to skin her alive. As quickly as the words would come, Jett spilled everything about the night Zanzihar had brought her the block drive, once again reliving that first encounter with the enforcers, Tyr's death, and her subsequent flight from the district.

It came out in a rush, but Rapid seemed to follow it, watching and listening in grim silence. She was acutely aware of the bristling armbows of his minions, all of them ready and able to turn her into a pincushion if he didn't like what he heard.

"They're hiding something, Rapid," she continued, her voice strained. "It's the reason they came after me and came after you. I'm close to figuring out what it is. If I do that, maybe I can do something about it, but if you kill me, in a few weeks, you won't have a business left to run. The wolfkin will dig you all out whether I'm here or not."

At last, the axe head dropped, hanging loosely by his side in one paw. Rapid let out a faint, wordless snarl and glanced at one of his subordinates, shaking his head. Slowly the armbows were lowered, and Jett felt a tremor of relief pass through her.

"Everything's gone to the Fire since you walked through my door that day," Rapid grated. "Palharr's been torn upside down and inside out, so I'm skulkin' out in this rat hole til it all blows over. Wolves never paid mind to me or mine for years, and suddenly they're tearing through every little workshop and drop point. Not just in Palharr either. I got friends out in the other districts who've had it the same. You know why, then this is yer chance to tell it."

"I think I do," she replied. Then she inhaled a steadying breath and took the plunge. "Rapid, what do you know about a district called Belforra?"

The albino's face scrunched in thought. "Some kinda derelict; had a chemical leak or something, and they had to evac everyone out. Long time ago now, though—I dunno if they ever put the place back together. That kinda thing's not really on my radar."

"Well, it should be."

"And why's that?"

"The wolfkin are sending a lot of kin there."

"And how d'you know that?"

As quickly as she could, Jett sketched him the details of her investigations since she'd last seen him, running through the dozens of relocation orders she'd uncovered, finally leading up to the murder of their foxkin compatriot, Fisker. When she told him of Fisker's untimely demise, she saw Rapid's face twist with anger, and right then, she knew she had him hooked. So she pressed on.

"He didn't even tell me the full story," she said, a hint of sadness creeping into her tone. "But he told me about Belforra—that was enough to get him killed."

"You'd need some Silk claws in that," Rapid muttered, absently tapping the axe haft against his thigh. "Couldn't get the relocations out without some kind of official channel."

"Someone is making up reasons for these relocations and promoting other kin into place to sign off on them, to help with the pushback." Jett spread her paws wide. "They're shipping these kin off to Belforra, and something is happening to them. Zanzihar found out what it was. It's why they killed him, why they tried to kill me, and why they've been tearing up our district."

He glanced up at her suspiciously. "So, what is happenin' out there?"

"I...I don't know yet."

"You're gonna need to do better than that."

Jett swallowed hard and glanced around. "You got a rig I can use here? I can prove I'm telling the truth—I'm just missing the last piece of the puzzle."

Rapid held her gaze for an achingly long moment, his pink eyes simmering as he weighed up whatever pros and cons he'd quantified. They'd known each other for a long time, and while she would hardly describe them as friends, she had always done right by him when it came to business. Trust was the greatest guarantee of a regular payday. She hoped that trust would be enough to anchor her now.

In a slow, heavy motion, he placed the axe down on the table and beckoned her to follow. Two of the foxkin guards fell into step behind her as Rapid let her silently from the room, sweeping through the heavy smoke-coloured blast curtain and back out into the heat of the workshop. They took a sharp right turn, bypassing a cluttered workstation where a foxkin and a beaverkin burned away at electrical components with welding torches and soldering irons. Rapid didn't so much as glance at them as he passed, jamming a shoulder against a sturdy metal door at the far side of the workspace. It opened with a creak of protesting hinges.

In the glorified cupboard beyond, Jett found a messy computer rig laid out on the table, a tangle of wires disappearing into the sparking, ill-maintained power ports in the walls. She wrinkled her nose at the arrangement, unimpressed by the chaotic tangle of cables, half-functioning cooling stacks, and glitchy displays.

"Is this really the best you've got?" she murmured to Rapid, for a moment forgetting the seriousness of her situation.

"I didn't bring you here so you could bitch about the workmanship." She flinched as his claws clamped tight around her upper arm. "So how about you just concentrate on convincing me that any of that wild-eyed yarn you're spinnin' is actually true?" He roughly shoved her into the seat and stepped back, folding his arms expectantly. The two guards blocked the doorway, and Jett felt her hackles rising. If she didn't convince Rapid here and now, she probably wouldn't be leaving this room.

Swivelling in the chair, she turned her attention to the computer rig, claws racing across the keyboard as she booted up the sparking machine's processor. It was a little more sluggish than she was used to, but after a couple of minutes, she had familiarised herself with its hardware. It looked like a garbage heap, but it had enough bodged spoofer components to serve her purpose. In a rattle of swift commands, she accessed the backdoor to the Conclave's internal network she'd planted during her field trip.

The relocation orders began spilling down the screen. She picked out the ones that backed up her story, pulling up the orders assigned from Zanzihar and Fisker first before moving on to other designates she suspected had been dragged into the scheme. Overall, it painted a coldly efficient picture. It was as though the wolfkin were systematically depopulating every remote and downtrodden district they could find, sending their populations to whatever awaited them in the depths of Belforra. And no one questioned it. No one even noticed.

The pattern was clear to her—she just hoped Rapid could see it too.

She waited for a moment as the albino stepped forward to examine the screen. His eyes narrowed again, lips quirking into a half-snarl, and she held her breath, hoping and hoping. When he finally spoke, she had to control herself not to let that breath burst out in a gasp of relief.

"Hellfangs, Fisker." Rapid sighed heavily. "Always was a lazy little sneak. Never had the legs for this kinda game."

"You knew him?"

"Cut a few deals from time to time." He shrugged. "He always wanted the Silk life without the hard work. They wouldn't have needed much to buy him into this little scheme." He examined the list of orders, shaking his head slowly. "Ya weren't kidding, were ya?"

"Afraid not."

"Fangs'n'fire..."

"You recognise any of these places?" Jett said, urgency beginning to gnaw at her as she glanced up at him.

He nodded slowly. Only then did she fully clock the change in the disposition of her criminal companion. Gone was the suspicion—Rapid looked thoroughly ill at ease now. The claws of one paw dug into the wood of the tabletop, the other clenching and unclenching as though he was strangling some unseen foe. Jett cocked her head to one side in surprise.

"Are you...okay?"

"Fine," he said quickly. "But I know what goes on in some of these places. These scrub districts—you could sink the whole place, and nobody would bat an eye. They're...forgotten about. If you wanted to disappear kin that nobody would miss, that's where you'd go. Did business in some of them from time to time—good places to stay under the radar."

"Did you know people out there?"

"Had some contacts out there." He finally looked from the screen, meeting her gaze. "Haven't heard from them in a little while, though. Guess we're getting to the bottom of why."

Jett wasn't quite sure what to say. Rapid always projected himself as a hard-nosed, uncompromising individual, not hampered by the emotional troubles of normal people, but looking at him now, it seemed pretty clear he'd had friends in these districts, no matter how he phrased it.

"You know something about this isn't right, Rapid," she said carefully. "This isn't going to blow over. You can't just lock yourself down here and try to outlast it. You know these places—you know Belforra. You could help me."

"Help you?" Rapid stood up, stepping back from the screen. "What makes ya think I wanna go to war with the wolves, eh?"

Jett swivelled in her chair and stood up, a churn of desperate courage welling up inside her. Steeling herself, she stepped close to Rapid, reaching out and grabbing him by the wrist, her face just inches away from his.

"You said it yourself," she hissed. "The wolfkin are crawling all over these districts, and it looks like they're going to keep digging till there aren't any shadows left for you to do business in. If you want the wolfkin gone and things to get back to normal, then do something about it."

Rapid bared his canines and tugged his paw free. "Careful, I'm in this mess cos of you, girl."

"We were all in it!" Jett exploded. "We just didn't know until now! All I did was see it before they wanted us to. Because of me, you've got a chance to stop what's coming rather than have it roll over you. Peace and Fire, you ought to be thanking me!"

"You might be waitin' a while for that," he growled back. "What's it you think I can do, eh?"

"We need to know what happened in those places. Use your contacts! Check out the districts where the relocations happened; trace where the kin ended up. If they went to Belforra, find out what you can about that place. If they didn't, and it's all some kind of cloak and dagger dodge, find out where they did go."

He chuckled mirthlessly. "Is that all?"

"Or do nothing," she snarled. "Sit here with your tail between your legs like a cowardly pup until the wolfkin drag you out by the scruff of your mangy neck. By then, there'll be nothing you, me, or anyone else can do to stop them."

He stared at her, those burning pink eyes edging to a devilish red in the half-light. He glanced at the guards in the doorway. The bigger of the two gave a faint, barely perceivable shrug of his lean shoulders, but she had no idea what that might mean. Rapid looked back at her, his jaw tight and twisted in thought.

"You've always been an honest little sneak," he said at last. "So I'll ride this train with ya a little longer. I'll look into it, but I'm keeping this low-key, under wraps. I've got my own people to look after."

"I understand." Jett held her cool, suppressing the euphoric surge of relief that his simple statement gave her. "You won't regret it, Rapid, I promise."

"I'll be holding you to that." Rapid nodded, looking back at the screen. "And say I find whatever it is you're hunting for; where ya hiding out these days?"

"It's better if you don't know."

"Y'can tell me now, or I'll have ya followed and find out anyway. You want me to do this on a little faith? Give to get, bright eyes."

She stiffened at his words, but she knew she didn't really have a choice. "Carlikane District. That's all you need to know."

"It'll do for now." He jerked his head towards the door. "Now scat before I change my mind."