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To the winds we scatter the ashes of Taazbaa’ and Cormac, clanmates and parents of two cherished fledglings who mourn their loss and celebrate their love.

She was the child of my womb, the oh-so-wanted daughter who held my mate’s hand as she learned to walk, the generous and sweet friend who brought light into the lives of her clanmates, the mother who played with Saoirse and Adam with the mischievousness of a child—and the woman who loved her mate with all her dancer’s spirit.

He was the man who loved her and their fledglings so well that we could do nothing but love him, too, the falcon from a distant green land who made everyone in the clan laugh with his humor, the son who filled his parents with pride each and every day—and the father who was an oak, solid and strong, for Saoirse and Adam as they grew.

Fly now, beloveds, your wings entwined for all eternity. Your fledglings, your families, and your clan will ever remember your laughing spirits, the memory of you etched onto our bones and into the walls of our home.

—The last eulogy for Taazbaa’ and Cormac Garrett, spoken by Aria, wing leader of WindHaven, prior to their committal to the skies (3 May 2073)

The past ten years had sheared her to the bone, Adam thought.

There’d been a softness to her face in the courtroom, not a real plumpness—the Psy hadn’t permitted their children to buck the mandated values of perfection back then.

Those who’d broken Silence since had shared that under the protocol, children were put on a regimen of nutrients designed to give them the exact right amount of fuel for their bodies.

No candy slipped to them by a favorite aunt or uncle.

No hot chocolates on a cold night.

No treats to celebrate a birthday.

So no, she hadn’t been plump. She’d just had that hint of childish softness to her cheeks and her chin that even a Silent regime couldn’t erase.

Her dark brown—almost black—hair, however, had been tightly scraped back into a braid, not a strand out of place.

No makeup on her face, the pale brown of her skin smooth and without flaw.

He had no idea of her ethnic background, her features such that she could’ve as easily slipped into a South American family portrait as she could an Iranian or Indian one.

Word was the Psy mixed and matched genes for strong psychic abilities, so she was likely a combination of multiple lines that were themselves equally complex.

That didn’t mean she had a bland, forgettable face.

No. Never that. Her face was arresting, had haunted him for ten years.

Lush lips that looked too soft against the sharp cheekbones, hollow cheeks, and clean jawline.

Eyes of a light hazel tinted with brown in one light, green in another, so direct it was striking—and then, when you looked deeper, there , the merest glimmer of a yellowish gold in the iris.

Look long enough and you’d convince yourself she wasn’t Psy at all but a changeling of unknown origin.

But Adam didn’t really care about any of that.

He was fighting a rage such as he hadn’t felt since the day his parents’ murder had been ruled an accident. Their murderer had paid a fine . A fucking fine . And the smug bastard had believed he’d gotten away with it.

If Adam’s clan had left it to the Psy, he would have.

Now one of the killer’s accomplices walked toward him in a black suit that was a little worn at the edges paired with a white shirt that she’d buttoned up to the neck, and scuffed black shoes that were closer to trail boots than dress shoes.

Thin, she was thin. Not fragile or weak, however.

This was the thin of someone who ate just enough and possibly forgot to eat at all when concentrating on other matters.

There was muscle on her, a kind of fluidity to her walk that told him whatever her eating habits, she put time into maintaining her strength.

She’d been softer back then, less akin to a puma ready for the hunt.

He drew in a breath and, though the changeling falcon sense of smell was closer to that of humans than other wild predators, caught a scent that had no threads of metal to it, as happened to those Psy who were so far in their Silence that they were never going to get back out.

But her face was expressionless, those distinctive eyes so flat as to be disturbingly lifeless.

When she came to a stop two feet from him, their height difference was enough that she had to tip her head slightly back to meet his gaze, but she did so without flinching.

“You were right,” she said in a tone that held nothing but her voice.

No emotion, no fragment of personality. “Reagan lied that day in the courtroom.”

Whatever Adam had been expecting her to say, it wasn’t that.

His falcon cocked its head, its talons still pricking the tips of his fingers, but no longer shoving.

“Bit late to speak up.” It came out shrapnel wrapped in icy calm; he was no longer the barely eighteen-year-old boy still naive enough to be shocked at the cruelty people could dole out with such ease.

His rage had had time to settle, become a thing of unbending steel.

“Yes,” she said.

Adam flexed his hands at his sides, then curled his fingers back in. “You think it’s that easy? That you just admit liability and it all goes away? I forgive you?”

“No.”

He stared at her, as did his falcon, both parts of his nature weighing up this Psy who’d looked over at him in that courtroom with a shocked gaze that had made him believe she’d stop what was going on, make it right.

But she’d said nothing.

He could no longer fully recall the face of the J who’d actually lied, but her, he remembered. Would always remember.

His muscles grew painfully tight.

“You know he’s dead?” he drawled, watching to see her reaction with a falcon’s focus. “My parents’ murderer.”

“Yes. Wayne Draycott vanished without a trace two years, six months, and four days after he walked out of the courtroom. I kept track.”

He asked the question without ever using his voice.

“Changelings don’t forgive such crimes; I learned that during one of my very first cases.

” A direct gaze with nothing behind it that he could read.

“Psy might believe we can cover up crimes, avoid justice, but changelings don’t accept the authority of the courts when it comes to crimes against their people—you’ll cooperate for the sake of appearances, and if things are open and fair, you’ll accept the verdict. But this trial wasn’t fair.”

The falcon resettled its wings inside Adam, its eyes emerging through Adam’s humanity as the wildness in him fought to get out, claim vengeance.

The falcon’s vision was far sharper than Adam’s human sight—it could see the very pores on Eleri Dias’s skin, catch even the most minute flutter of expression…

but there was nothing to catch, nothing to see.

The woman might as well be made of stone.

“You don’t seem concerned about standing in front of a changeling you seem convinced executed a Psy,” he said, well aware his voice wasn’t wholly human any longer.

“Execution is the changeling punishment for premeditated murder. You may have let it go had he been sentenced to the Psy equivalent of psychic and physical imprisonment for life. But he had influential friends, so he walked out of the courtroom a free man—and the second he did so, he signed his death warrant.”

Adam couldn’t understand this woman. She was definitely not the same girl who’d almost walked into him in the hallway outside the courtroom and upended everything he thought he knew about the world, and about himself.

That girl had been a whole person, no matter if she was Silent, her personality vibrant in her every word.

Oh, I’m so sorry. I should’ve been looking up instead of at my organizer.

In contrast, the woman in front of him appeared devoid of personality; she gave off no cues by which he might judge her.

All he had were her words, and his finely honed ability to see through bullshit.

“What the fuck are you doing here?” he snarled, his chest tight with the hugeness of all the things he could never ever feel for her.

“If you wanted to die, there are less painful ways to go about it.” He waited for excuses, perhaps for an attempt at an impossible penance.

He’d heard some Psy were out there trying to make up for their crimes.

There could be no making up for what she’d done, what she’d failed to do. Her. The one person in the entire world on whom he should’ve been able to rely. The one person who’d kicked his boyish heart so badly that he still wore the bruises.

She’d hurt him so much that he’d tried to turn cold and unfeeling in an effort to protect himself.

It had been Saoirse who’d snapped him out of it.

“I’ve already lost Mom and Dad,” she’d said, unexpected tears in her eyes—his sister was one tough cookie who’d been running on anger since the day of the murders.

“I can’t lose my bighearted, annoying, loving bear of a little brother, too. ”

Chirp and Bear. What a delightful combination of fledglings we’ve made, Cormac.

Not only made, my dear heart, but managed to raise to near-adulthood with only minor calamities and three broken bones between them.

No, Dad, all three broken bones were Adam’s. I’m far too graceful to go flying into canyon walls. Bear, on the other hand…

A cascade of memories upon memories of the family they’d once been, the loving parents whose honor this J had helped desecrate that day in the courtroom.

“There’s a serial killer in this region” was her cold response to his question about what she was doing in his territory.

“The Sandman.” Adam hated the media for glorifying the pathetic waste of space by giving him the pithy sobriquet. “I know.”

“I think he’s based in Raintree.”