Chapter 3: The Wolf Who Wouldn't Break

"Wait. You're the ten-match girl?" Poppy stopped dead in the middle of the path, pink hair swinging. "The whole quad is talking about you!"

"Apparently that's me," Nora said.

Lucy's eyes went round. "Ten! I only brought one mate, and Poppy brought two." She blushed. "Where are yours?"

"Busy," Nora said lightly. "They should turn up in a couple of days."

Most she-wolves reported to Moonstone with one to three males taking turns at their side. A female was a treasure, and everybody knew it. Poppy only shrugged. "Don't worry. The Moon Wardens watch every path on campus. There isn't a blind spot anywhere."

Nora kept smiling. The anonymous text was still burning a hole in her pocket. Trust no one. She would take the wardens under advisement.

"I'm a red wolf, by the way," Poppy said, tossing her hair. "Loud, proud, and allergic to subtlety."

"Gray," Lucy mumbled. "A small one."

"And you?"

"Silver Hollow blood," Nora said. "My pack has an old trick for hiding scent." That was true enough, if you counted pine tar.

They spent the afternoon at the campus mall. The fines from her five ex-mates had cleared that morning, so Nora bought bedding, sweaters, a stack of paperbacks, and enough snacks to feed a small pack. She felt rich in a way that had nothing to do with money.

"One more stop," Poppy said, dragging them by the sleeves. "Wednesday is Lantern Market night."

The market glowed at the edge of the quad, rows of stalls lit by glass lanterns. Upperclass males sold what they had hauled back from the Wilds: wild berries, smoked game, carved charms, and the one thing that made Nora stop walking.

Heartstones.

When a hunter killed a feral beast, a crystal formed in its heart. A she-wolf with the right gift could purify it, and then it could be refined into tonic or swallowed raw to restore spirit. Stronger spirit meant stronger wolves, and stronger wolves hunted bigger beasts.

Nora stood in front of an emerald stone the size of a plum. It hummed against her skin like a held breath. "How much?"

"A level five greenheart," the vendor said, a scarred man with one sleeve pinned up. "It takes three to five level-six hunters to bring one down. Five hundred thousand dollars, and no haggling."

Five hundred thousand. Nora almost laughed. In this world, a wolf's freedom and a good stone cost the same.

Then she noticed the tray beside it, a heap of dull gray pebbles marked Spoiled. Free to a good home. Each one was clouded and cracked.

"What happened to these?"

"Bad purification," the vendor said. "The soothers at the Bureau botch one in ten. The filth stays inside and rots it. They're junk."

Nora picked one up. Under the grime, she could feel a faint green pulse, like a heartbeat in a sleeping animal.

She glanced at the girls, who were busy arguing over a charm bracelet. She cupped the pebble in her palm and let a thread of lightning run through it, thin as a hair. The gray clouds inside the stone twisted and burned off in a blink. When she opened her hand, a small, clear shard glowed green.

The vendor's mouth fell open.

"Level three greenheart," Nora said quietly. "I'll take it off your hands, if it's junk."

He stared at her. Then, very slowly, he closed her fingers over the stone. "Take it. And, miss, if you ever want to do that again, I have a whole barrel in the back. Fair split."

"I'll think about it."

She tucked the shard into her bag and turned away, and the hair rose along her arms.

Woodsmoke and cold iron drifted through the crowd, a scent she had last smelled in a splintered train car. She scanned the lantern-lit faces and found nobody staring. But at the far end of the aisle, between two stalls, a long shadow stood perfectly still, and for one heartbeat something gold caught the light.

Then Poppy tugged her sleeve, and when Nora looked back, the aisle was empty.

"You okay?" Lucy asked. "You went pale."

"Just tired," Nora said. She didn't believe it either.

---

She meant to head back to Birchwood Hall. Instead, a man stepped out from behind the pretzel stand and blocked the path.

He was tall, brown-haired, and broad through the shoulders, in a gray security jacket with a Moonstone patch on the sleeve. His eyes were bloodshot, and his hands were clenched at his sides.

"Nora Whitlock," he said. "Jackson Rowe."

Match number five. Nora's pulse jumped, but her face stayed blank. "Hello."

"I'll be direct." His jaw was tight. "Your spirit rank is too low to calm me. I'm at ninety-five percent restlessness, and a C-plus girl can't fix that. I'll pay the five hundred thousand to break the match. Tonight. Name the account."

Poppy and Lucy melted away at the edge of the crowd, pretending not to listen.

Nora tilted her head. She had expected this offer. She had even planned to take it. But she looked at his eyes properly this time and saw the white-rimmed edge in them, the faint tremor in his fingers, and the way his breathing kept catching.

She had seen that look in the Collapse, on men who hadn't slept in a week and were one bad noise away from breaking.

"When did you last sleep?" she asked.

Jackson blinked. "That's not..."

"When?"

"Three days," he admitted.

She stepped closer, which made him stiffen, and she took his wrist before he could stop her. Her palm was warm. She let a thread of green wood-magic slide through her skin and into his, soft as moss, the way she'd once settled starving survivors into sleep.

His breath left him in a long shudder. The tension dropped out of his shoulders. The red haze in his eyes thinned and cleared.

"What did you do?" he whispered.

"Nothing." She let go. "Go to bed, Mr. Rowe. Keep the money."

"You're refusing to break the match?"

"I'm refusing to take your money tonight." She smiled. "Ask me again in three months. If you still mean it, I'll say yes."

He stood in the lantern light, staring at his own hand, while she walked away.

"Okay, what was that?" Poppy hissed, catching up with her. "He was practically vibrating, and then he just... melted!"

"He was tired," Nora said.

"Nora, nobody melts that fast. Not even for a ten-match girl."

Lucy looked back over her shoulder. "He's still watching you."

Nora didn't turn around. She had already decided to be more careful with her hands in the future.

---

Back in her cottage, Nora dumped her bags on the sofa and kicked off her boots. Her phone buzzed.

Snow Biscuit was calling.

She hesitated, then answered. The screen filled with a young man with frost-white hair and gray tips, a dark blue field jacket, and a smear of blood across one pale cheek. His amber eyes held the sunset. And on top of his head, half-shifted, silver-white ears drooped like a kicked puppy's.

Oh, that's dangerous.

"Hi, mate!" Brooks Callahan said, beaming. "Sorry, I'm leading a hunt at Fort Sable. I can't get to you until Saturday. Is there anything from Alaska you'd like?"

He held up the day's haul to the camera: huckleberries, smoked salmon, elk jerky, a birch-bark carving.

"I'd love huckleberries," Nora said. "And salmon, if it's not too much trouble."

"Done." His ears perked. "You don't want to unbind? Most girls have already texted five different numbers."

"I'm C-plus," she said. "I might not be able to calm you."

"We'll figure it out in person." He grinned, then looked a little shy. "Besides, you're the first mate who's ever asked me for fruit."

Her phone chimed. Twenty thousand dollars. Allowance for the month!

Warmth turned over in her chest. She had nearly forgotten what it felt like to be looked after. She shoved the feeling down hard. They hadn't even met.

She had just ended the call when Poppy's name flashed across her screen.

"Nora! Come over, quick! The Moon Circuit preliminaries are streaming! Your guy's up next!"

Nora pulled on her boots, walked next door, and dropped onto Poppy's sofa as the stream loaded.

"Next up, Mason Reed!" the host boomed. "Just twenty-two years old, combat level eight, spirit rank S..."

Nora opened her match list. The name, the level, and the rank all matched.

On screen, a lean young man with dark hair walked out onto the sand. He raised one hand to the crowd. Then he stumbled.

The camera zoomed in. His eyes had gone completely black.

"Oh no," Poppy whispered. "He's going feral."

The crowd went silent. The wardens in the arena reached for their sedative rifles.

And in Nora's chest, a thread she hadn't known she had pulled tight, and her wolf rose up and howled.