By the time Cassian reached the east watch house, the light had gone thin and metallic, the kind of evening light that made wet bark shine and old stone look colder than it was.
The outpost sat half-hidden beyond the tree line like something the pack had forgotten on purpose, a squat building of grey stone and warped timber that had once mattered enough to patrol and no longer mattered enough to burn. That made it exactly the sort of place Rowan would keep.
Cassian stopped several yards short of the door and let the silence settle around him.
Six wolves moved with him, spread wide enough through the brush that the watch house looked unwatched from the front. Jace held the left line with two men. The others angled toward the back wall and the old storm cellar cut into the slope behind the house. No one spoke. Rain from the afternoon still clung to the leaves, and every small sound carried more cleanly than it should have.
The place smelled wrong.
