Chapter 2

Mom pulled her into a hug at once. “It’s been three years, and you didn’t do it on purpose. Why bring it up again?”

When she turned to me, weariness crept into her voice.

“Ivy, your sister knows she made a mistake. How is she ever supposed to move on if you keep doing this?”

All I had said was that I couldn’t see properly, yet somehow I was the one being made to feel guilty, just as I had been three years earlier. That day, I had been working on my graduation project in the academy’s art studio. Mia had come in carrying a small jar, saying she wanted to sprinkle some glitter on my Moon Goddess statue.

When I spotted a warning label reading “POWDERED SILVER” on the jar, I caught her hand at once.

“That’s powdered silver. Don’t touch it. Put the lid back on.”

She pulled free, sending fine powder into my face before I could even close my eyes. Pain like red-hot needles drove me to my knees while Nora screamed inside my mind, the claws that had begun to emerge from my fingertips forcing their way back in. Mia stood beside me, crying and insisting she hadn’t known what was in the jar, although she later claimed I had knocked it over while trying to grab it.

The healer spent a long time flushing my eyes, but some of the silver particles were embedded too deep to remove. I kept a little of my sight, but I could no longer make out the fine lines on a drawing. Nora was so weakened that even a simple partial shift was beyond us. The warrior assigned to investigate came to the clinic. Throwing silver dust into another pack member’s eyes was enough to get Mia expelled and brought before the elders, even if no one had died.

While Dad stood outside my room all night, Mom held my hand and begged me to spare my sister.

“She’s your sister, not some rogue. She’s terrified. She’s barely eaten in days.”

“Seeing you hurt is bad enough. Do you really want us to watch our other daughter be taken away too?”

With medicated dressings covering my eyes, all I could do was listen to her cry.

“What about my eyes?”

“We’ll get them treated.” Dad finally came into the room, his voice hoarse. “I’ve contacted a healer in the North. Whatever it costs, we’ll get you help.”

Keller sat on the edge of my bed and guided my hand to his face. We had recognized each other as mates when we came of age. Shortly before I was hurt, he had marked my neck and promised we would hold our mating ceremony after I graduated.

“Ivy, I’m not going anywhere.” He kissed my fingertips, still damp with medicine. “Don’t be afraid. Until you can see again, I’ll be your eyes.”

I believed them.

When I signed the statement asking for leniency, I couldn’t even keep my own name on the line. At first, they really did take good care of me: Dad installed a handrail on the stairs, Mom reminded me to apply cleansing fern every day, and Keller turned down night patrols so he could sit with me through my moonlight treatments. On the rare occasions when I could make out his silhouette, he seemed even happier than I was.

As treatment dragged on far longer than any of us had expected, Mia began making comments at dinner. “Ivy noticed I’d changed my dress today. Why does she start saying she can’t see as soon as Mom gets home?”

I explained that telling colors apart wasn’t the same as being able to read.

She lowered her head. “I know. She just doesn’t want me to forget that I did this to her.”

Once, while Keller was waiting with me to see the healer, Mia called to say she had no ride home from rehearsal for her graduation performance. He told me to stay where I was and promised to be right back, but I was still waiting when the clinic turned out its lights.

When Mom came to get me, she touched my freezing hands, then said, “Can’t you let your sister have a little of his time? It’s not as if he spends every day with her.”

After that, Mia cried whenever I said I was in pain, until they started telling me to bear it before she even had the chance. Now, backstage, she was crying the same way, and Keller handed her a tissue before coming back to take my hand.

“Let’s leave the past alone. Can we just get through the show? Next time, I promise we’ll ask you first.”

Mia took the opportunity to pull off my tinted glasses. “You can’t wear these, Ivy. They’ll ruin the illusion.”

I reached for them, but she had already pushed them into Mom’s hands and was pulling me toward the curtain. When the music began, I recognized the melody at once. It accompanied a scene I knew by heart: a blind mother wolf crossing a shallow stream in search of her lost pups, with a statue of the Moon Goddess standing among the trees. This was my graduation project, Return to the Moon; I had even marked the position of the water trough in my designs.

“Mia, did you use my work?”

She leaned close to my ear. “You’re not even in school right now, Ivy. It was just sitting there going to waste.”

“The judges already think I made it. Imagine how embarrassed Mom and Dad would be if you said anything now.”

Before I could recover enough to answer, she pushed me into the lights. Standing in the water, I finally understood why she had insisted on using me: an actress who had rehearsed the scene would have known that someone was supposed to help the blind wolf, not leave her stumbling around onstage for everyone’s amusement. I reached desperately for Keller through our link again.

“It’s my project. Keller, you saw my drawings. Please get me off the stage…”

He hesitated. “The judges are all here, Ivy. We’ll talk about it after the show.”

I called out to Mom instead.

“Mom, the lights are too bright. I really can’t see anything.”

“Ivy, you recognized my scarf a few minutes ago.” She sounded torn. “Please don’t pick this moment to be angry with your sister.”

Dad joined the link. “You’re always telling us you can’t see. Now we ask you to act blind for once, and suddenly you can’t do it?”

My chest tightened until I could barely breathe.

Curled deep inside my mind, Nora asked softly, “Why won’t they come?”

With no answer to give her, I could only keep begging. Dad was the first to block our family link.

“Quiet down for a minute. Your sister’s about to take her bow.”

Mom followed, cutting off her link after telling me, “Stop crying. I’m right here in the audience.”

Finally, Keller sighed.

“I’m only blocking it for now. I’ll open it again when the show’s over. Ivy, I can’t keep getting distracted.”

A faint chill passed through my mating mark. Mia had already blocked her link too, leaving my calls unanswered. They had taught me never to block a link lightly, because doing so shut out pain and warning signals as well. Yet none of them thought I could be in danger when I was right there where they could see me.