Chapter 3

POV: Wren

“You’re late.”

Dr. Halloway didn’t look up from the herbs she was sorting when I came through the clinic door, which was, I was fairly sure, the single kindest thing anyone had done for me since the fire circle.

“Sorry.” I hung my bag on the hook by the door and rolled my sleeves up before she could ask me to. My leg had stiffened overnight into something closer to a solid ache than the usual dull one, and I’d taken twice as long as normal getting down the hill because of it, but I wasn’t about to say so. “Where do you want me?”

“Cabinet three needs restocking. Marlow’s boy has a fever in the back room, and somebody needs to change Erik’s dressing before he decides he can do it himself again.”

“On it.”

She still hadn’t looked at me. I was grateful for that too, in a way I didn’t examine too closely.

I made it through cabinet three and into the back room before the pity found me. Marlow’s boy was maybe six, flushed and cranky, and his mother took one look at me in the doorway and softened her whole face into the expression I’d been getting since I was eight years old. The one that meant poor thing even when nobody said it out loud.

“You didn’t have to come in today,” she said, gentle, like I might break if she used a normal voice.

“I work here.” I checked the boy’s temperature, kept my hands steady, kept my voice light. “Same as yesterday.”

“Of course. I just meant, after last night, nobody would think less of you for taking the morning.”

“I’m fine,” I said it fast enough that it came out sharper than I meant it to, and she blinked, and I made myself soften before the silence got any worse. “Really. He’s running warm, but nothing dangerous. Willow bark tea, cool cloth on his neck, back to normal by evening.”

She thanked me twice on the way out, both times a little too warmly, both times aimed less at the diagnosis and more at whatever she thought I needed to hear this morning.

By the time I got to Erik, my jaw ached from holding my face in something neutral.

“Heard the Alpha’s getting married fast,” Erik said, before I’d even reached his cot, because subtlety had never once occurred to him. “Guess that settles that.”

“Hold still, this will sting.”

“I’m just saying, probably for the best. Council knows what they’re doing.”

“Erik.”

“What? I’m not trying to be an ass about it.”

“You’re doing an excellent job anyway.”

He had the sense to shut up while I redid his dressing, though I could feel him watching me the whole time, working up to whatever he was going to say next. I finished faster than the wound strictly needed and moved on before he got the chance.

Tobias caught me in the hallway an hour later, arms full of clean linens, and took one look at my face before he said anything.

“Bad morning.”

“Everyone’s very concerned about my well-being.” I took half the stack out of his arms without asking, mostly so I’d have something to do with my hands. “Erik thinks the engagement’s for the best. Marlow’s wife thinks I’m made of glass. I’ve had four separate people ask if I’m holding up okay in a tone that suggests they’d very much enjoy it if I wasn’t.”

“You want me to say something to Erik.”

“I want everyone to talk to me like I’m a person who works here and not a story they get to feel sorry for.”

“Noted.” He said it simply, no argument, and fell into step beside me toward the supply room, and something in my chest loosened half an inch just from not having to explain further. Tobias had never once needed the explanation twice.

We worked in something close to quiet for a while, restocking, checking inventory against Dr. Halloway’s list, and I let myself believe, for a few minutes, that the day might just be an ordinary one.

Then the ache came back. Not in my leg this time. Lower, under my ribs, that same low pulse from the fire circle, faint but unmistakably there, like something pressing a hand flat against glass from the other side.

I set down the jar I was holding a little too hard.

“You okay?” Tobias asked.

“Fine.” I made myself breathe normally. “Long night.”

He didn’t push, which I was grateful for, because I didn’t have an answer I trusted myself to say out loud yet. Whatever this was, I wasn’t ready to hand it to anyone. Not even him.

Dr. Halloway found us both twenty minutes later, took one look at the restocked cabinet, and gave the closest thing to an approving nod I ever got out of her.

“Go home early,” she said. “You’ve done enough for today.”

“I can stay.”

“I know you can. I’m telling you to go home anyway.”

I gathered my bag, and I was almost at the door when she spoke again, not looking up from her ledger, her voice pitched low enough that Tobias, already halfway down the hall, didn’t catch it at all.

“Some wolves aren’t dying, Wren.” She kept writing, like she was commenting on the weather. “Some are waiting.”

I turned around fast enough that my cane skidded on the floor. “What does that mean?”

She looked up then, and for just a second, something moved behind her eyes that looked almost like fear, before she smoothed it away and reached for a different ledger entirely.

“It means go home and rest,” she said. “I’ve got patients.”

She didn’t look up again, no matter how long I stood there.