CHAPTER 3

Ivy's POV

I don't answer him.

I straighten up, let go of the railing, and put my hands back in my jacket pockets. 

"I'm tired," I say, "That's all it was."

Caelum looks at me for a moment. He doesn't push. He just nods slowly.

"Goodnight, Ivy," he says.

I go inside but I don't sleep.

***

Morning in Ashveil arrives without asking. I lie on my back and stare at the ceiling and catalogue everything I know.

Facts. Start with facts.

I am in Ashveil Pack territory. I am here for one year on my father's terms. My job is to be present, cooperative, and unproblematic while the treaty holds. I have one objective, and no margin for complications.

That's the list.

Caelum Dusk asking me how long I've been feeling it in the dark at half past midnight is not on the list. Neither is the way my body moved toward that howl before I told it to.

I get up, wash my face with cold water, and decide that both things are going to stay firmly off the list until I understand them better. Understanding first. Feeling later. Preferably never.

I'm lacing my boots when Maren knocks.

She comes in already talking, which I'm learning is just how she exists in the world. 

She has two cups of something hot and she hands me one before I've said good morning and drops onto the end of my bed like we've been doing this for years.

"Alpha Soren wants to see you at nine," she says, "Territory protocols, boundary rules, the list of things you're not supposed to do."

"Is it a long list?"

"Medium. The main ones are don't go past the eastern markers without an escort, don't attend Pack ceremonies without an invitation, and…" she pauses, wrapping both hands around her cup, "don't go out alone at night."

I look at her over the rim of mine.

"Maren."

"Mm."

"Did Caelum tell you?"

She takes a long sip. "Caelum tells me most things. We grew up together." She glances at me sideways. "He didn't tell me what you talked about. Just that you were out there."

"I'm not reporting back to anyone," she says, and there's no performance in it, just the flat simple truth of it, "I'm telling you the rules because I want you to know them before Soren delivers them with that face he makes."

"What face?"

"The one that makes you feel like you've already done something wrong." She stands, "Nine o'clock. Don't be late, he hates late."

She's at the door when I say, "Last night. What I asked you about, that feeling."

She stops.

"You knew what I was talking about," I say, "You just didn't answer."

The pause she takes is a breath too long. When she turns around her expression is careful in a way it wasn't a moment ago, like something has rearranged behind her eyes.

"Come find me after your meeting with Soren," she says.

Then she leaves.

***

Alpha Soren's study smells like pine resin and authority.

He's already seated when I arrive. He gestures at the chair across from him and I sit.

"I'll be direct with you," he says.

"Please."

Something moves across his face. Almost appreciation. "This treaty matters to me. The peace it creates matters more. I don't know you, Miss Voss, and I have no particular reason to trust a Syndicate envoy in my territory. What I do have is a signed agreement and a Pack that is watching how I honor it," He leans back, "So I will treat you fairly. I will give you access to this territory within reason. And I will ask one thing in return."

"What thing?"

"Don't make me regret the agreement."

It's not a threat. It's cleaner than a threat; it's a choice, handed to me plainly, with both outcomes visible.

I think about my father and his three sentences. Intelligent. Adaptable. No trouble. I think about how different it feels to be spoken to like someone who can decide something versus someone who has already been decided.

"I won't," I say.

He nods. Picks up the first paper. Meeting apparently over.

I'm halfway to the door when he says, without looking up, "Your escort."

I turn.

"Rook Vane," He says the name like he's already done a file on it, "He's Syndicate-trained, rogue-born, and he makes my sentries uncomfortable," He looks up then, "Is he a problem I need to manage?"

I think about Rook's face at dinner last night, watching me and Caelum from the doorway with that expression I've never seen on him before.

"No," I say.

Soren holds my gaze for one second longer than comfortable.

"Good," he says, and looks back down at his papers.

***

I find Maren in the healers' building at the edge of the main lodge. She's grinding something in a bowl when I come in and she doesn't stop, just tilts her head at the stool beside her workbench.

I sit.

"How long have you been having the episodes?" she asks, still not looking at me.

The word episodes lands with a precision that stops me. Not feeling. Not reaction. Episodes. Like she has a category already built for it.

"Since I arrived," I say carefully, "Last night was the strongest."

"Before that? In your life. Anything similar: during high emotion, stress, full moons?"

Full moons. I file that.

"Sometimes," I say slowly. "I always put it down as anxiety."

Maren sets the bowl down and looks at me fully for the first time since I walked in. 

There's something in her expression that sits between professional and something much more personal like this matters to her in a way that goes beyond healer's interest.

"Ivy," she says, "I need to ask you something and I need you to answer honestly."

"Okay."

"Has your wolf ever surfaced?"

The room goes very quiet.

I can hear the wind outside, the creak of the building, my own breathing.

"I don't have a wolf," I say. "I'm Syndicate. We don't…"

"That's not what I asked."

I look at her. She looks back at me, and I realize she's not asking because she doesn't know the answer.

She's asking because she wants me to hear myself say it.

My mouth is dry.

"No," I say, "It's never surfaced."

Maren is quiet for a long moment. She picks up her bowl again and turns back to her workbench.

"You should rest before tonight," she says.

"Why? What's tonight?"

She pauses, just briefly.

"The moon is almost full," she says. "And this territory responds to that whether you're ready for it or not."

She doesn't say anything else.

And I sit on that stool and I feel the thing I've been calling anxiety my entire life sit up straight inside my chest like it's been waiting for someone to finally call it by its real name.