Chapter 1

Her lungs tore with every breath, raw as if she had swallowed glass, and still her legs kept moving, carrying her down the slope of a valley she did not recognize toward a forest that rose ahead of her like a wall built to keep something in or something out. The night was dark, and she could feel the cold soaking through her thin shoes with every stride.

She didn't know why she was running. She didn't know from whom.

She only knew, with the kind of certainty that if whatever followed her closed the distance between them, there would be no morning, no waking up from this.

Run. Just run; don't stop to understand it. Understanding can come later, if there is still a future to consider.

The trees swallowed her, and for one heartbeat she let herself believe she was safe and that the dark could hide her the way it hid everything else. Relief flooded through her chest.

Then the footsteps came again, closer than before.

That was the worst part. Whatever hunted her wasn't chasing. It was strolling, the way a predator paces itself when it already knows the ending.

Panic surged in her chest, and she ran harder, branches hitting her arms and face. She barely registered because pain meant she was still alive, still moving. Somewhere behind her, low and long, something howled, and it was not the sound of a beast that had spotted prey. It was worse. It sounded like someone was calling her name.

A name that felt like it belonged to her even though she had never heard it before.

Her foot caught on a root, and the ground came up hard and fast, driving the breath out of her, scraping her palm raw against the stone. For one long second, she lay there with dirt in her mouth and her heart hammering against her chest.

Get up.

Get up, or your journey is where it ends.

She got up; she did not look back as some deep animal instinct told her that looking back was the one unforgivable thing, the one act that would finally let it catch her.

She ran until the trees gave way to open air, until she could hear water rushing somewhere close, and there was a river, wide and blue, shining with moonlight, and a small boat tied to the bank just out of reach.

She staggered to the water's edge and dropped to her knees, chest heaving, and looked down to steady herself.

The river gave her back a stranger's face.

A wolf's face, with golden eyes, was watching her from beneath the water.

She screamed.

"It's not me." Marcela was shaking her head, over and over, fingers clawing at her cheeks as if she could peel the wrongness away like a mask. "No, it's not me, not me—"

She woke up with a scream still stuck in her throat, half-formed, and for one terrible moment she didn't know where she was, not the valley, not the river, but a bed, her bed. Her room was dark and familiar, and yet her body hadn't caught up to that fact; her heart was still back there at the water's edge, still convinced something was coming.

She threw off the blanket and stumbled toward the bathroom on legs that didn't feel entirely like her own.

The mirror—she needed the mirror.

She gripped the edges of the sink so hard her knuckles went white and forced herself to look up.

Her own face stared back, human eyes wide with fear, her own dark hair damp and stuck to her forehead, and her own mouth trembling.

The breath left her in a rush that was almost a sob, almost a laugh, and her body realized, all at once, that the danger had never been real.

Except some small, stubborn, part of her did not believe the mirror, not yet. Her hand rose on its own and touched her cheek, her jaw, and the bridge of her nose, checking and confirming to herself in the most primitive way she knew that this face, this skin, was hers.

She turned on the tap and splashed water over herself, once, twice, and three times, until the cold shocked her fully back into her body and the pounding in her ears quieted down.

That was when she saw him.

Eremis stood in the doorway, hair a mess from sleep, bare feet on the cold tile, wearing the expression she hated most on him, the one that said he had already imagined the worst before he had even reached her door.

"Are you alright, Ela? I heard you scream. I came running."

She turned, confusion cutting briefly through the fear. She was certain she had locked that door.

“I am fine," she managed. "But how did you get in?”

He held up the spare key between two fingers, the corner of his mouth lifting into something almost gentle. “You keep forgetting I have this.”

Something in her chest loosened at the sight of it, something so small and ordinary as a key, and yet it was enough to remind her that she was not alone in that house, that not everything in the dark was a threat.

“I am sorry I woke you.” She brushed past him, suddenly desperate to check if everything was normal. "Go back to sleep. It's nothing.”

He didn't move from the doorway.

“Ela." His voice dropped. "Why did you scream?"

“Bad dream.” The words came out flat, as if she were trying to forget what she had just lived through. As if the bad dream could explain why her hands were still shaking.

“The same one?”

The question hit harder than he could have known. She looked up and found his eyes fixed on her, unblinking, and understood in that instant that he had been watching her, every time she thought she had hidden it from him.

“Today I saw something,” she whispered. “Something really bad.”

“Tell me.”

She shook her head, not in refusal exactly, but in helpless bewilderment at him—two years younger than her, and yet he had been playing the older sibling since he was old enough to walk. She had never thought  whether that comforted her or broke her heart a little.

“There's nothing to worry about. Something startled me in the dream, that's all. I couldn't help screaming.”

She had always been a terrible liar. She had simply forgotten, for one foolish moment, that he was still watching her face the way as he always did, like he could read the truth moving underneath it.

He said nothing; he waited for her to explain.

And his silence undid her more thoroughly than any question could have.

“Emis.” Her fingers found his hand and gripped it, too tight, an anchor. “You know how I always said my dreams are the same as running, but I never reach anywhere? Tonight was different. I finally reached the water. And when I looked down at my reflection—“

Her voice broke off.

“It wasn't my face, Emis; it was a wolf's."