“It’s Lawson now,” he said as Marrok helped him to his feet.

“New world, new name,” the white wolf said. “Makes sense.” Marrok nodded as two large, burly boys picked up Ahramin and Edon and took them into the forest.

“Where are you taking them?” Lawson asked. “One of them is my brother.”

“Do not worry, no harm will come to him, but I cannot promise the same for the hound.” Marrok turned to Rafe and Malcolm. “There is food and drink in the camp. Go and find your friends. There are many from your den with us.”

Marrok was striking, Bliss thought, but his beauty was marred by an ugly raised scar that bisected his face.

“A gift from Romulus,” he said when he caught her eye.

“I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to stare,” Bliss said as Marrok turned his head to reveal the full scope of the burn that ravaged his face and neck.

“It’s a wound that will never heal, but it reminds me not to take things for granted. I wear the mark with pride.” He clasped his hands together. “Come,” he said. “There is much to discuss, but we must have a good meal first.” He looked at Bliss with narrowed eyes. “Your mate?” he asked Lawson.

“No—just a friend,” Lawson replied while Bliss looked away, trying not to blush.

“You were like one of the masters once,” Marrok said, studying her face. “Yet you are one of us now. You have a wolflike quality about you. Why is that?” He did not seem bothered by her, only curious.

“It’s a long story,” she said. She couldn’t help staring at his strange, colorless eyes. He was pale, almost like an albino.

“Perhaps you will share it with me someday,” Marrok said, and his tone of voice suggested he would like that very much.

Lawson smirked. “Stop flirting, you old dog. Get us something to eat.”

Marrok led them past the serpent mound toward a group of trees that seemed tall enough to block the sun. Bliss found it difficult to know where to look first—the wolves had managed to create some sort of architectural miracle that seemed almost like an optical illusion. She was reminded of some M. C. Escher drawings, with their staircases that looped up and down, twisting and turning in ways that weren’t entirely real. The wolves seemed to have woven the leaves and branches into a community of nest-like shapes connected with rope ladders that looped up and down and around the trunks of even the tallest trees.

Her appreciation of the architectural beauty of it quickly turned to panic, though, as she realized that it would be impossible for her to reach even the lowest of the nest-like enclosures. She was about to ask Lawson what she should do, but discovered with a start that when she turned her head, the hive formation was gone.

She turned back to look at it and found it unchanged, and turned to Lawson again, only to see it all disappear.

Lawson noticed her confusion and smiled. “It’s an old wolves’ trick,” he said. “Using humans’ peripheral vision against them. This camp is only visible to humans if they look at it directly, and even then, they probably won’t believe what they see, especially if it disappears when they turn their heads. It’s a way of hiding in plain sight.”

“Clever.” She nodded.

He helped her climb the trees, teaching her where to place her feet, how to lift herself up with her hands. Marrok climbed ahead, leading them to a platform balanced precariously on the top of the boughs.

“What is this place?” Bliss asked.

“It’s where I was supposed to meet Marrok, when we first escaped from the underworld,” Lawson said. “I thought he would come out at the same place we did, and it turned out I was waiting at the wrong place. It looks like they’ve been here for a while.”

On the platform, a meal had been prepared. “I hope you don’t mind an early dinner,” Marrok said. “Since we gained our freedom, we’ve tried to keep some of the old Roman traditions alive, so our main meal is the cena, the late-afternoon meal.”

“I’d eat anything at this point,” Lawson said.

They sat cross-legged in front of a basket of bread and a plate of roasted meat. For a while, no one spoke as they focused their attention on eating.

Lawson finally pushed his plate away. “I gave up on you,” he said. “I thought there was no hope.”

“I’m sorry we were a bit delayed. We had some trouble,” Marrok murmured.

“Ahramin.”

“We were not privy to the details of your escape, we did not know that Ahramin had been captured. The hounds sent her to our den. We trusted her. But she was already one of them. Luckily one of us noticed the crimson around her pupils and we told her nothing. When they realized she was useless as a spy, they sent her aboveground. We only managed to escape after she’d gone. We tried to find you when we got here, but kept missing your scent. I’m glad you found us.”

“I thought we were alone,” Lawson said. “I thought we were the only ones who made it out. But then we found Ahramin, and she said there were other free wolves. I didn’t know what to believe; I thought it might be a trick, I wasn’t sure what I would find when we got here.”

“Ahramin…” Marrok shrugged. “She is a traitor. We have been looking for her since Romulus unleashed her on us.”

“She says Romulus broke her collar, that she is no longer a servant of the beast,” Lawson said. “She led us to you. I would never have come here otherwise.”

“She might be playing a more complicated game with you. With us.”

Lawson reached for a piece of bread and tore it with his fingers, crushing part of it into a yeasty ball. “If you release her to Edon, I can promise that he’ll keep an eye on her.”

“Edon, who loves her so desperately he won’t leave her side? I think not.”

“She’s part of my pack,” Lawson said.

“Ulf, you are my friend, but I’m sorry,” Marrok said, “there’s nothing she can do that will make up for how she betrayed us.”

Lawson sighed. “You have the chronolog?”

“It wasn’t easy,” Marrok said as he broke off a piece of bread and nibbled on it.

“Fenrir raise his ugly head?” Lawson asked. “Is that how you got it?”

The light-haired boy shook his head and smiled. “I’m telling you, that’s a myth.”

“Who’s Fenrir?” asked Bliss.

Lawson explained that there was a legend among the wolves that one day the great wolf Fenrir would return and free them from slavery. It was something wolf cubs told each other, especially during those last desperate days before they would be turned into hounds…that one day they would return to their former glory…that one day, someone would come…someone would be sent…to help them…to free them. “Just another old wolves’ tale,” he said, smiling. “Obviously we didn’t need anyone to free us from the underworld. We freed ourselves. How many more wolves managed to escape?” he asked Marrok.

“Not as many as we’d like, much less than we’d hoped,” Marrok said. “A centuria at most.”

“Where are they?”

“Scattered. The hounds hunt us day and night; many of us have been captured and sent back.”

“How many are here?”

Marrok shrugged. “Fifty, sixty at most. You saw the entrance to the passages, I assume? The serpent mound?”

“Yes.” Lawson nodded.

“The dark roads have returned to us,” Marrok said. “The power of the wolves is growing.”

“So it would seem,” Lawson said.

Marrok took a long drink from his goblet. “There’s something more you should know. We have been tracking the hounds as well, to avoid their movements. One of our spies found this in the remnants of their camp. I think it belongs to you?” He handed it to Lawson.

Lawson stared at it in his palm. It was a small gold chain with a heart locket, engraved with a crescent moon. A trinket from the mall, a cheap little thing, but Tala had wanted it and he had given it to her. She always wore it; she never took it off. Someone must have pulled it off her neck, must have broken the chain.

“It’s Tala’s, isn’t it?” Bliss asked.

“Yes.” Romulus was taunting him, Lawson thought; Romulus knew the wolves were tracking the hounds, and he’d meant for someone to find it, to bring it back to Lawson. Romulus wanted Lawson to know he held her life in his hands. Wanted Lawson to come to him to rescue her. Wanted Lawson to show himself, wanted to bring him closer.

“Tala, who escaped with you?” Marrok asked.

Lawson nodded. “But she did not get away the second time. When the hounds returned.”

“We did not see a wolf in their midst, but we could be wrong. Their numbers are great. Our spies tell me that Romulus’s pack is making its way here. They will be upon us in a day or two.”

“They are close, then—that must have been why Malcolm felt ill,” Lawson said.

Marrok continued. “He is gathering his hounds for Rome, to the beginning of the empire’s founding, as Lucifer wanted. The loss of the chronolog hasn’t changed or slowed his plan, but I don’t understand how he presumes to navigate the dark roads without one. Without a chronolog to guide them, the passages are useless. He must know something we don’t.”

Lawson ruminated on the news, still holding the small gold chain tightly. “Let him find the passages. Let him come.”

Marrok frowned. “What are you saying? I’ve sent a call to the wolves to defend the passages from him.”

But Lawson was adamant. The light was back in his eyes, and his voice was confident. “When Romulus and his hounds arrive, we will let them inside the passages. Let them go to Rome. I will take my pack after and follow him inside.”

“What?” Bliss cried out.

“I’m with her,” Marrok said. “Why?”

“Outside of Hell, Romulus is vulnerable. Especially in Rome, he will have to retain human form. He will be weaker. Don’t you see? We can kill him, Marrok. I know we can. We must strike now. This might be our only chance.”

“Kill an ancient wolf? You forget he is immortal. Only we new pups die like ants crushed beneath a heel.”

“I did not forget,” Lawson said. He removed a small velvet pouch and showed them the needle inside it, which had unlocked their collars in the underworld. “I still have this.” Before their eyes, it grew to the size of a sword, shining golden in the moonlight.

“That is Michael’s sword,” Bliss breathed. “An archangel’s blade. But it was broken,” she said, remembering how the glass she had held had shattered into a million pieces.

“A heavenly blade is never broken, the masters found it after a great battle aboveground,” Lawson explained. “It was the deadliest weapon in Hell’s arsenal. It carries the White Fire of Heaven.” The Hand of God, it was known as among the creatures of the underworld.

“It can kill that which cannot be killed,” Bliss murmured, thinking of the blood the sword had shed. Of how it had been used for ill gain. Of the vampires who had fallen to its power. It was the sword that had killed Lawrence Van Alen. It was the sword that she had plunged into her own heart, breaking her father’s hold on her spirit.

“It can kill Romulus and it will,” Lawson said, gritting his teeth. “I swear it.”