He waited. Monty said nothing.

“Saw the meat being delivered yesterday.” Jimmy shifted in his seat, as if he was uncomfortable all of a sudden. Monty could believe that. Jimmy did better when he had time to make up a story. “Seems a waste, bringing good meat like that to the freaks when they could be catching rats and squirrels and shit.”

“I didn’t hear you complaining about the meat deliveries when you were eating at Meat-n-Greens or A Little Bite. Where did you think that food came from?” Monty asked.

“Yeah, well, it seemed like a waste. And I was having a drink at a bar near the bus station and heard these men complaining that there wasn’t any meat in the shops and their women were bringing home tripe and shit like that instead of real food, and maybe I was a bit too full of drink and said how the Courtyard always had good meat, said I’d seen a delivery of steaks and pork chops and roasts and all kinds of food that was fit for a man to eat. And the four of them—there were four of them, not six—started buying me drinks and we were just talking about how hard it was now to take care of a family and they were asking about the butcher shop and maybe I told them more than I meant to—more than I remember saying, that’s for sure. Then I went home and I slept all night.”

In the end, Monty had the name of the bar and the names the four men were known by in places like that. Hopefully it would be enough that the police could fill out DLU forms to give to the next of kin.

“Can I go now?” Jimmy asked when Monty stood again.

“I’ll find out.” He took a step away from the table, then stopped. “Jimmy, you should think hard about getting out of Lakeside and starting fresh somewhere else. You haven’t done anything to give the terra indigene here a reason to think well of you, and now they definitely have reason to think you’re an enemy.”

“You think I give a shit?”

Didn’t take long for Jimmy to fall back into his entitlement mind-set.

“You should,” Monty said quietly, “because there are beings in the Courtyard who are so powerful and dangerous that they can turn your brains to soup with just a look. Just a look, Jimmy. And now, because of this bit of stupidity, all the Others are going to be watching everything you do from now on.”

Monty walked out of the interrogation room and leaned against the wall, exhausted.

Four men had gone into the Courtyard last night. Only one had had time to let out a high-pitched, terrified scream.

The door of the observation room opened and Commander Louis Gresh stepped out.

“Captain Burke said I should drive your brother back to the apartment building,” Louis said.

When no one else came out of the observation room, Monty asked, “Where is the captain?”

“He’s kept Kowalski isolated in his office since your brother was brought in. He knew you’d get the truth out of Cyrus, or enough of it, and he figured watching Kowalski right now was more important.” Louis blew out a breath. “This shook up your boy something fierce.”

“It shook all of us.” Monty looked at the ceiling. “The terra indigene aren’t human, but they have studied us, and, gods, they know how to send a message.”

“Do you think your brother got that message?”

“No. He’ll go on believing he can work this just like he worked his schemes in Toland. Despite the evidence right in front of him, he’ll be like a lot of other people who still want to pretend, maybe need to pretend, that there aren’t lethal repercussions when they mess with the Others.”

Louis sighed. “It could have been worse.”

“How?”

“The Others could have waylaid Kowalski, made sure he wouldn’t cross paths with Cyrus. Then Cyrus would have brought the package home and opened it there. How much more shocking would it have been to cut the string, unwrap that package, and recognize the tattoo?”

And Jimmy would have bragged about it, made a big deal about snagging the last piece of special meat, just like he’d done when he saw Kowalski. But it would have been Sandee and the kids looking at a man’s forearm, unprepared for the harsh reality of what the terra indigene saw when they looked at humans. Most humans. He had to keep believing that Simon and Vlad and the rest of the Others no longer saw all humans as prey.

But the Others had known the theft was going to happen and hadn’t asked the police for help, so he had to wonder if Jimmy had created a wedge between himself and Simon Wolfgard, had cracked the trust that had been building.

And he had to wonder what that meant for the mixed communities that were being created and the people who were now living among the world’s dominant predators without even the pretense of a barrier between them.

• • •

Burke studied Kowalski, who sat in his office looking pale and still a bit shaky. But the officer’s dark eyes didn’t have the wild look anymore, so now it was time to talk.

“What happened?” Burke asked.

Kowalski shook his head. “I saw Cyrus waving that package and bragging about scoring a piece of special meat, and I lost it. I don’t remember taking him down. Things snapped into focus again when Jenni Crowgard asked if I needed help, if I wanted her to peck its eyes out. Its eyes, not his eyes. I knew I needed an excuse to get her away from him and I needed to get him out of the Courtyard, get him back on land where human laws did apply. I needed to arrest him and get him out of there because he was drawing attention to himself, to all of us, and . . .” He stopped, seemed to choke.