To her immense surprise, Jett awoke to discover that she was still alive.

Her head swam as she tried to sit up, bleary lights ebbing in her vision. Rubbing her eyes clumsily with one paw, she blinked several times, trying to clear her sight and focus. It took a few seconds for things to coalesce—dark, wood-panelled walls, spherical bulbs shining through patchy light shades.

Well, it wasn't the enforcer headquarters, and it certainly didn't look much like a prison cell. With a groan of effort, she attempted to swing herself into a sitting position, belatedly discovering she'd been lying in a bed. She swung her footpaws off the side and then waited for the room to stop spinning. Waves of nausea swelled in her throat, and she swallowed them back down, trying to regain some sense of what had transpired in those last fateful minutes in the enforcer compound.

She remembered the wolfkin grabbing her; she remembered fighting. Then things went fuzzy. With a groan of annoyance, she dug her claws through her headfur, leaning forward and screwing her eyes shut away from the swaying of the room.

Karno. She remembered him—remembered throwing the pack at him. Then the smoke and the heaviness. Then darkness.

"Jett?"

The voice almost sent her tumbling off the bed as she jerked her head up. Immediately, her vision swam, and she swayed drunkenly for a second before managing to clamp her paws down against the bed to hold herself steady. Carefully, she turned to look.

The dark, bleary outline of a figure stepped through the door of the room, a bowl of something that smelled amazing clutched in its paws. She examined the outline, almost as though things were happening in slow motion. The sharp ears and long limbs...grey-white fur. With a sharp intake of breath, she shuffled back onto the bed when she realised it was a wolfkin.

Then her mind caught up with what she was seeing.

"K-Karno?" she said unsteadily, head lolling sideways as she looked at him.

"Hellfangs, those nerve cloggers must've been mixed stronger than I thought," he replied, a hint of relief clear in his voice. "How're you feeling?"

"I feel drugged through the snout." Jett rubbed her eyes again as if the action might speed up the process of flushing the chemicals from her system. "What...happened? Last thing I remember, I was telling you to run away, and I had wolfkin clawing me to bits."

"I'll explain," he told her, sitting down on the bed and reaching out with the bowl. "But you need to eat something. You've been out cold for the last twelve hours."

Jett let out a short, sharp laugh. "Longest I've slept in days." She accepted the bowl, and the scent of sizzling meat and spices flooded over her as she took a deep breath. Her stomach let out a rumbling growl, and suddenly her senses came rushing back. Everything felt a little sharper, the mental fug of the nerve clogger briefly overwhelmed.

She looked at Karno for a second, then tore into the meat ravenously. Some kind of fowl, but she didn't stop long enough to try and figure out the breed. The meat melted on her tongue as she shovelled it down, barely stopping to chew in her hunger. In a matter of minutes, the bowl was licked clean, and she slumped back on the bed with a contented sigh. Then she realised the rather savage display she'd just exhibited in front of her companion and a rush of self-consciousness twisted through her.

Jett sat up again, stifling a burp and looking sheepishly at Karno. "I...eh, thanks. That was good."

"Yeah, they do a pretty decent spread in this little joint, don't they?" he agreed, his eyes wandering around the room as though examining it for the first time.

"So where are we anyway?"

"Hotel just outside the Silk—Caroula District."

"How did we get here?"

"Got a little lucky," Karno told her, leaning his elbows on his knees and scrubbing a clawed paw through his headfur. "I was far enough away that the clogger never got me. You took all three of those enforcers down with you."

"Really?"

"Oh, yes." A smile twitched the corners of his mouth. "Someone's in for a really bad day when their boss finds out they let us slip their claws."

Jett winced. Even she couldn't expunge a faint twinge of sympathy for the unfortunate trio who were probably feeling Hera's wrath as they spoke.

"So...so then what?"

"Then I had to drag you out of there."

"You dragged me?!"

"Well, I tried carrying you," he protested. "Excuse me if I haven't been to enforcer boot camp to get muscles the size of building slabs, okay?"

"Sorry, I—" Despite it all, she had to stifle a laugh at the mental image. "I didn't mean it that way. I was just surprised."

"That makes two of us," he chuckled. "Got you out through that tunnel entrance before reinforcements could turn up and lugged you down into the sewers."

"How in the Peace did you pull that off?"

Now it was Karno's turn to look sheepish. "You might have a few extra bruises that the enforcers can't take credit for."

"I think I'll let that go, just this once," she told him, giving him a light kick with one footpaw. "So then you dragged me through the sewers to this place?"

"That's the long and short of it," he agreed with a nod. "Hunkered down till darkone then came up here, booked us a room and, well"—he glanced around with a shrug—"I hope you like mid-range warrenaries with bad pipes and good food."

"It'll do just fine." Shoving herself up into a sitting position, she shuffled over to sit beside him. "And...thank you. You know, for saving my life." She leant her head to the side to touch his shoulder for a moment before straightening up. "So, what now?"

"I was hoping you could help with that," he replied, looking at her. "We can stay here tonight, but that's about as far as my plan went. You said you had people waiting for you?"

Jett nodded, rubbing her eyes again, still trying to shake off the residual effects of the clogger. "We'll need to send a couple of messages. Think you can find us a courier?"

"Sure."

"Then do it. I've got some notes to write."

"Who exactly are we writing to?"

"A guard and a criminal."

Karno blinked. "Is that a fact?"

"Afraid so."

"Fangs," he muttered. "Still full of surprises, aren't you?"

"You wouldn't want me boring," she shot back with a winning smile.

He laughed at that. "I could call you a lot of things but boring sure wouldn't be one of them." Shoving himself up off the bed, he inclined his head to the room's desk. "There's some bark paper in there. Get writing while I go hunt us up a couple of runners."

Jett watched him until he stepped through the door and shut it behind him. Even then, her eyes lingered for a moment. Thanks for saving my life. The words had felt oddly good coming out of her mouth, acknowledging that for the first time since the wolfkin had slaughtered her family, there really was someone looking out for her—a true ally in this mess.

Clambering off the bed, she ambled over to the desk, putting Karno from her mind for the time being and instead filling her head with the words to summon Bronco and Rapid to a meeting. The albino foxkin's new lair seemed the best place to get their little alliance together, so she scribbled away accordingly. Bronco and Rapid were hardly unfamiliar with one another, their relationship tense—see-sawing on the edge of outright hostility. Jett could only hope the threat of the wolfkin would be enough to let them put aside their differences, at least temporarily.

Even though the notes were short and succinct, it took her several minutes to write each as she agonized over the wording, her mind still running a couple of gears below optimal as she tried to shake off the after-effects of the nerve clogger. When Karno returned with a quillkin courier, she'd only just finished addressing the bark-paper scrolls.

She handed them over, thanked the quillkin, and ushered him quickly out the door, leaving no room for questions and small talk. When the door closed again, she sagged heavily back onto the bed, feeling drained from even that small exertion. Her eyelids felt heavy, and she let out a cavernous yawn before her fur prickled with self-consciousness. She glanced up at Karno, but he'd already slouched across the room to the desk chair. He leaned back with a sigh, his head rocking backwards until he was looking at the ceiling.

"Not much to do now but wait, I guess," he said after a moment. "You sure your friends will be on time?"

"They'll be there," Jett assured him.

Karno smirked faintly before pivoting in the seat to face her. "Well, don't know about you, but it's getting late, and I could do with a good night's sleep. Who knows when we'll get another chance once we set this ball rolling."

"You have no idea how good that sounds." Jett felt her body relax, the knowledge that for the next few hours at least, there would be no pressure, no chases, no hacking, no fighting. She could just rest.

But upon looking around, she noticed that there was only one bed, and a tremor of unease swept through her. She looked back at him sharply, mouth opening to speak, but no words came out.

Karno saw her hesitation and waved a dismissive paw. "It's okay; you keep the bed."

"I...are you sure?"

"I've slept in worse places than this," he chuckled. "I'll survive another night." He stood up, sauntering over to the small sofa tucked against the back wall of the room—she noticed the bundle of blankets draped over it. He'd already spent a night folded up onto the thing somehow. It didn't look like it should be physically possible for him to get his whole body onto it.

A twinge of guilt gnawed at her, and she almost let him go.

Almost.

"Wait," she blurted, stopping him in his tracks.

He turned back, giving her a quizzical look.

"You don't have to..." she trailed off awkwardly, searching for the right words. "We both need some real sleep. There's plenty of room." She made a vague gesture to the bed with one paw. "I think it's built for two."

Karno seemed more perplexed than uncomfortable. He faced her, planting his paws on his hips and cocking his head to one side, ears pricking forward through his headfur.

"You mean that?"

"Well, yeah." Jett shrugged. "We're adults. There's no need for you to cram yourself onto that thing when there's a perfectly good bed here. I don't bite."

Where the hell'd that come from?!

Jett felt her tail curl with embarrassment at those last words. Fangs, she wasn't trying to flirt with him. It just slipped out.

Karno didn't miss a beat. "As long as you're okay with it. I would prefer a real mattress."

"It's fine, honestly," she said, trying to put a bit of firmness into her voice to mask the pricking of her fur. To show she meant it, she shuffled back onto the far side of the bed, leaving a space easily large enough for Karno with room to spare.

"Alright then." He smiled, showing a hint of his canines. "Thanks."

That settled it. Jett felt a little flustered, but it was certainly the right thing to do. Pragmatically, they both needed to be at their best. She repeated that thought to herself several times as she began slipping off some of her clothes as he stepped over to the light switch. Normally she slept in nothing but her fur, but tonight that didn't seem like a very good idea. She stripped down to her flimsy bodywrap before burrowing under the duvet, jamming some of the half-dozen pillows strategically into a nest-like arrangement.

He flicked the light off a moment later, plunging them into twilight with the city lights crackling beyond the windows. Her sharp eyes picked him out of the darkness as he began peeling off his clothes. Then he crossed the room, slipping in under the blanket beside her. There was room in the bed for a good few-inch gap between them once he'd settled himself, but he was close enough that she could take a deep lungful of his scent.

She heard him sigh contentedly, a faint shuffle as he snuggled deeper into the cushions. For a moment, they descended into silence, the only sound the faint, distant fuzz of the city beyond the windows. Then he spoke.

"You know we're gonna do this, right?" he said, his voice soft and low.

"Do what?"

"Stop Hera, expose the wolfkin, all of it."

Jett smiled in the darkness, staring at his shape beneath the covers. "Why so sure?"

"We just robbed the enforcers, girl! If we can pull that off, I'd be thick as an otterkin's tail to bet against us."

A short, sharp giggle slipped out of her mouth at his words. She believed—she had to—but any sane person wouldn't have given them a hope in the Savage Fire of pulling off any of this. Hearing someone else say the words that she'd been repeating in her mind since this ordeal began gave her an injection of much-needed faith.

She was moving before she really made the decision in her mind. Reaching out, she turned Karno towards her. He tensed for an instant before allowing her to roll him to face her. Then she pushed herself through the nest of pillows until she found the warmth of his body, pressing herself up against him.

With her paws clasped together over her breast, she snuggled close, tucking her muzzle up into the hollow beneath his chin, fitting her body to his. He hesitated for a second, and then she felt his arms circle her, slipping gently around her slender frame with one paw on the small of her back, the other looping around her shoulders. His grip tightened as he hugged her, and Jett let out a long, contented sigh, breathing in his smoky musk and basking in a feeling of security that she had not had for weeks. Her eyes drifted closed, the weariness of the world catching up to her in a single overwhelming surge.

There in his embrace, she sank into a deep, dreamless sleep.