When my borrowed human form dissolved—fur erupting through fading skin—Silas materialized at the cage.
I blinked up at him through tiger-whiskered gloom.
"Still fleet of paw?" His voice held winter's edge.
My mane-tangled head shook no.
Satisfaction ghosted across his lips.
One fingertip touched the cage lock. The jade sigil disintegrated like sugar in rain.
"Come."
Thus I became Silas Brooks' sanctioned beast-companion—
The Demon-Subduing Sect's sole path to clemency for monsters.