“That may be,” said an elderly male bird, whose head feathers had begun to gray. “But none among us would debase himself for a few more years on earth. What good is life if you live it in dishonor?”

Lance had no answer for that. He had done the very thing the thunderbirds could not abide: he’d sacrificed his honor for his life. Worse yet, he’d let others pay for his crimes.

A petite woman stepped forward on small, sharp talons, weaving birdlike with each movement. “Have you anything else to say for yourself?”

Lance hesitated, his hands folded together at his back. “Just that I’m truly sorry for what I’ve done to Finn and for what I’ve allowed to happen to the south-central Pride. They are completely innocent.”

My exhalation was so ragged and heartfelt that it echoed in the near silence. Kaci squeezed my hand, and I knew without looking that she was smiling up at me. Most of the tension had drained from her bearing with Lance’s admission.

The small female bird turned to me. “Faythe Sanders, you and your kitten may go. Cade and Coyt will take you down.”

“Thank you.” I glanced at Lance, then turned toward the door. But Kaci’s grip on my hand pulled me to an abrupt stop.

“What about him?” She nodded toward Lance.

“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?”

Such a sentence was unheard of among werecats. Man-eaters were among the most reviled of our criminals, and those most severely punished before they were executed. And the idea held special horror for Kaci, because a few months earlier—starving and half out of her mind—she’d partially consumed a hunter she’d killed while stuck in cat form.

Nothing Brynn could have said would have upset her more.

We were all watching Kaci, me in concern, as I tried to herd her toward the door, the birds in detached curiosity. They obviously could not understand her reaction. But so focused were we on the young, near-hysterical tabby that no one paid much attention to Brynn’s little chicklet, scampering from bird to bird, as if she were playing tag in a great forest.

No one paid attention, that is, until she gave a sudden startled squawk.

Every head in the room turned, and Brynn gasped in horror. “Wren!”

Lance stood in the center of the circle, holding the child by her currently human waist, her thin legs and talons dangling, his broad hand loosely gripping her neck. “Promise you’ll let me go, or I’ll kill her. I swear I’ll do it.”

“Lance…” I warned, as all around us, the birds who’d retained a few human features Shifted completely into avian form, and the entire throng pressed subtly, aggressively toward him. “You don’t want to do this. This is not the way to get on their good side.”