“That’s out of our hands, Kaci,” I said, pulling her forward. “Let’s go.”

She shook her head and stood her ground. “But we can’t just leave him. What are they going to do to him?”

“You should listen to your mother,” Brynn said, and I glanced up to see her standing on the edge of the crowd, holding her ever-morphing daughter on one hip. “Lance Pierce will be put to death for his crimes, and you don’t want to see that.”

She was trying to help; I could see that. She considered Kaci my daughter—even if not biologically—and she was trying to help, from one mother to another. Unfortunately, outside of the giant aviary, telling a child that someone is about to be executed is not a good way to calm that child down.

“What?” Kaci’s screech was almost bird-worthy. “They’re gonna kill him, Faythe. You have to help him.”

I pulled her close and made her meet my stern gaze. “Kaci, there’s nothing I can do for Lance. We all have to pay for our mistakes, and Lance made a big one.”

“So did I!” She glanced at him, then back at me. “I messed up a lot. People died. But no one killed me, ’cause I didn’t know what I was doing. That’s what you said. You said I wasn’t really guilty if I didn’t know what I was doing. And he didn’t know what he was doing, either. You heard him. He didn’t know thunderbird law, so he’s not guilty, right?”

I shook my head slowly and closed my eyes, trying to figure out how to explain. “It’s not the same, Kaci. Lance…I’ll explain it to you later, okay? When we get home. Let’s go.” I turned toward the door, and again she refused to move.

“No. You have to help him, Faythe. That’s your job. We can’t leave him here.”

My heart ached for her, and over my own reluctance to hand over a fellow werecat to be executed. But I’d made my decision and it was far too late to change my mind. “Kaci, my job is to protect you, and I’ve done that. We have to go. Marc and Jace are waiting for us outside.”

But she only shook her head and turned back to Brynn. “How?”

“How what?” Brynn asked, and the baby bird on her hip Shifted its nose and mouth into a tiny, sharp beak and began nipping at her mother’s arm in a bid for freedom.

“How will he die?” Kaci stood straight and tall, as if steeling herself for unpleasant information. Information I didn’t want her to have, even if I didn’t know precisely what it was.

“He will be eaten, of course.” Distracted, Brynn set the struggling child on the floor as she spoke, and clearly had no idea the effect her words would have on Kaci. “Consumed by the family of his victim.”

Oh, hell…

Kaci’s eyes widened, and her mouth opened and closed, as if her response had been stolen by sheer horror. “You’re going to eat him?”