Swiftcurrent Creek The fury that eats me alive

Jace pelted here with questions. Bazi didn't know the answer to half of them - of course she wasn't sure that the pack would agree with her. "I can't give him Fox, and neither can anyone else in the pack. She left us, just as she left those two girls," she hissed irritably. Scimitar's arrival cut off whatever she was going to say next. Bazi presumed he had heard her throw Fox to the dogs, and the fact that he did not shy away from her for voicing that thought suggested that Fox was had done a great deal of damage to the seeds of loyalty she had supposedly sown.

Bazi's vast guardian was no fan of the Sunspire wraith's tone, but Jace and Bazi had always been frank with each other - today was no different, but it was not an appropriate way to communicate in the presence of company that might misconstrue their bickering as something more vicious.

"Ferdie doesn't know he's here," she clarified firmly, pressing her shoulder against Scimitar's. "Does he? He wouldn't send you here alone to negotiate. Jace cares about ours - about Leaf. But we can't sit around and wait for Fox to turn herself in. Those are Swiftcurrent wolves he's holding - and you said it yourself! What happens if one those fresh-faced vagrants decides that Ferdie's word is not the law of the land? What happens if someone takes a shine to Leaf - or Magpie? We can only cut ties with Fox. You have to make him believe that we will. Convince him. His problem is with Fox, not with two innocent girls." The second, unspoken option was clear to them all - the Creek would reclaim their children.

/Dramatic music plays