She’s swaddled in a pale cloth, sleeping soundly. It doesn’t seem possible that she could have changed in just three days, but her cheeks seem fuller, her eyelids a bit less translucent.

“This child represents the future of your pack,” he says.

It is not a question, but I nod, fear gripping me. I don’t know how to unlock the map. I can’t give him what he wants, and he’s going to kill Bay for it. I’ll have to lie. There has to be something I can say, something I can do . . .

“You want more time?”

“Yes, please,” I gasp. I’m on my knees beside the cradle now, begging with a devil. “Please, I just need more time.”

“Then you will have more—three days for each of your pack-members. At noon every third day we will convene in this nursery. You will look across the dam at the oldest surviving member of your pack, and if I do not hear what I want, they will fly like your mother. I’ll work my way down to this child”—he nods at the cradle—“and if, by the time her blood is spilled, you still haven’t come clean, perhaps I will believe that you’ve been honest. That you do not know how to read it.”

“I don’t know how.”

The General pulls a knife from a sheath at his hip and rolls the handle idly in his palm. “So I should just kill her now?” The blade dips toward Bay. “Not even bother with the new time I’ve afforded you?”

“No—wait! It’s a code!” I blurt out. “Your Oracle can’t read it because it’s not written in the Old World language.”

The General lifts a brow. “Go on.”

“I can’t decode it from here, I need . . .” Asher. The Vulture’s Roost. He’ll know what to do. “I need to leave,” I tell the General, “and I will get you answers if you promise that my pack will be safe until I return.”

“Whatever you need, we can acquire it. Name the objects or person who can decode the map, and we’ll bring them to Bedrock.”

I open my mouth, pause.

“You’re lying.” The General smiles slyly. “You know the code. You know how to read it and you’re keeping it to yourself.” His smile morphs into a scowl. “Remember this, Delta: whoever finds the Verdant controls who can access it. You won’t be leaving Bedrock unless I allow it, and you and your pack won’t be granted access to the Verdant unless I allow it either. Give me what I want, and your pack can have a future. Do you understand?”

I consider lying again—calling out a random location where the Verdant might be and sending him searching the wastes. But he’d only return furious, happy to spill more of my pack’s blood.