The decoys and dangerous flirtation worked to buy them two days. On the evening of the second day, Samuel received a curt text message: 'Alpha's den. Now. Alone.'
His face went instantly grim. "It's my father, Alpha Chinedu," Samuel explained to Esther in a low voice. "He knows Fortune is escalating, and he knows I haven't kept you a secret from the Pack anymore. He's called a council."
"Will he punish you?" Esther asked, worried.
"Worse," Samuel sighed. "He'll send me away from the city. Or worse, he'll order the Pack to take you into 'protective custody'—a glorified prison—to control the Keeper."
"No," Esther shook her head firmly. "I am not a prisoner. I am a partner. We need the information from my grandmother's lab. If your father removes me, we lose everything."
"You have to stay here," Samuel insisted. "No one must know we've planned an escape. Stay in your room. Lock the door. Tell Kemi, if she's back, that you're sick."
Samuel left, the scent of his anxiety mingling with the usual pine.
Esther watched him go, then immediately grabbed her backpack. She wasn't waiting. If the Alpha was holding a council, the security around the Pack's movements would be focused on the meeting location, not on their homes. This was her chance.
She walked quickly out of UniPort campus and hailed a tricycle taxi (keke Napep).
"Madam Chinwe's old compound," she told the driver, giving him the address for the derelict, overgrown botanical garden on the outskirts of the city.
The ride was long and bumpy. When the keke finally stopped, the old gate was barely visible behind a wall of flowering vines. The air here was thicker, humid, and smelled intensely of earth and unfamiliar, sickly-sweet blossoms.
The moment Esther stepped onto the cracked pavement, the silver bloom necklace around her neck began to grow intensely warm. It hummed against her skin.
She pulled out the old, heavy iron key her grandmother had left her and fitted it into the padlock. The lock clicked open with a loud, rusty protest.
Inside the compound, the greenhouse stood like a glass skeleton, overgrown with tropical creepers that glowed faintly under the moon. As she stepped across the threshold, a sudden draft, unnaturally cold and carrying the distinct scent of cold stone, snaked through the air.
Esther froze. She wasn't alone.
"Well done, Keeper," Fortune's voice dripped from the shadows inside the greenhouse. "A predictable move. Now we see whose lie will grant you the power you seek."