LETTERS FROM HOME

CHAPTER 12

My mother's handwriting on the envelope made my chest tighten before I'd even opened it.

"Bad news?" Tessa asked when she spotted it in my hands.

"I haven't opened it."

"Then how do you know it's bad?"

I turned the envelope over between my fingers.

"Because it's from my mother."

Tessa raised an eyebrow.

"Good and bad look the same in her handwriting."

She nudged my shoulder.

"Open it."

I broke the seal.

Inside was a single sheet of paper, folded twice.

Mira

I don't know how to write this without sounding like I'm asking for more than you've already given us.

I sat down on the bench in the hallway.

Tessa settled beside me without a word.

I kept reading.

The collectors stopped calling.

My throat tightened.

The roof is fixed. Toby has new boots. The heating was repaired before the first frost.

I swallowed.

It's the first winter in years that I haven't been afraid of the phone ringing.

I stared at the words.

"That's good," Tessa said softly.

"It is."

My voice cracked.

"I just..."

"You didn't want to be the reason it took this long."

I looked at her.

She didn't need me to answer.

I'd spent years watching my mother count coins at the kitchen table.

Years watching Toby pretend not to notice when there wasn't enough food for everyone.

I'd told myself accepting the arrangement was a practical decision.

A way to help them.

A way to solve a problem that had never really been mine to begin with.

But the truth was uglier.

I had needed the money.

They had needed me.

And now, reading my mother's relief on a piece of paper, I wasn't sure which part hurt more.

I continued.

I don't know how to thank you for this without feeling ashamed that you had to be the one to save us.

My eyes burned.

"She's thanking me," I whispered.

"She loves you."

"It doesn't feel like gratitude."

Tessa waited.

"It feels like she's apologizing."

"For what?"

"For needing me."

Tessa's expression softened.

"You did have a choice."

I gave a quiet, humorless laugh.

"Did I?"

She didn't argue.

That was somehow worse.

I wrote back that night.

I sat at the small desk in my room, pen hovering over the paper for far too long.

Finally, I began.

I'm doing well.

I stopped.

Then continued.

I'm eating properly.

Another pause.

The staff take good care of me.

That part was mostly true.

Roman treats me fairly.

True.

The pregnancy is progressing normally.

Also true.

I stared at the page.

Every sentence was accurate.

None of them were honest.

I hadn't written about the council.

Or Elder Wren's hostility.

Or Corvin's questions.

I hadn't written about collapsing in the hallway.

I hadn't written about Roman carrying me to Sable's room as though the thought of losing either me or the baby terrified him.

And I certainly hadn't written about the things I couldn't explain.

The static beneath my skin.

Sable's strange reaction.

The locked folder.

The words old blood.

I folded the letter before I could change my mind.

Then sealed it.

Twenty minutes later, Tessa found me still sitting at the desk.

"You don't have to explain."

She pulled the chair opposite mine and sat.

"I'm not crying."

"Of course not."

I wiped my cheek.

"You're very convincing."

A weak laugh escaped me.

Then my expression fell.

"I miss them."

"I know."

She didn't tell me everything would be fine.

Didn't tell me I was doing the right thing.

She simply stayed.

Sometimes silence was kinder than reassurance.

After a while, I looked at her.

"Tessa?"

"Hm?"

"Have you ever heard the phrase 'old blood'?"

Her answer came easily.

"Of course."

I frowned.

"Of course?"

"People use it when they talk about the founding families."

"Sable used it."

Tessa went still.

"During my examination."

Her fingers tightened around the edge of her sleeve.

"She asked if anyone in my family ever talked about it."

Something flickered across Tessa's face.

A flash of recognition.

Gone almost immediately.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"That wasn't a nothing face."

"Mira..."

"Tessa."

She looked down.

For several seconds, she said nothing.

Then she sighed.

"Where did you hear it exactly?"

"Why?"

Her hesitation answered before her words did.

"It's not something people talk about openly."

"Why?"

"Because it means something."

She finally looked at me.

"Old blood isn't just a saying. It refers to certain bloodlines."

"What kind?"

"Bloodlines that go back further than most pack families."

"How far?"

"I don't know."

"You said families."

"I did."

"Which families?"

Tessa shook her head.

"I'm not supposed to know the specifics."

"Or you're not supposed to tell me?"

She didn't answer.

My stomach tightened.

"Tessa."

Her expression became almost apologetic.

"Some questions are safer when nobody answers them."

"That's not an answer."

"It's the only one I have."

I wanted to push harder.

But something in her face stopped me.

Fear.

Not of me.

Of the question itself.

I let it go.

For the moment.

Then I remembered my mother's letter.

I'd read it once already.

But there had been a line near the bottom that I'd almost forgotten.

I reached for the folded page beside me and read it again.

There.

Buried beneath the part about Toby's boots and the repaired roof.

Your grandmother always said the Vale women carried something the rest of the pack didn't.

I stopped breathing for a second.

I never understood what she meant.

I used to think it was one of her superstitions.

I'd laughed when I'd first read those words.

My grandmother had been full of strange sayings.

Warnings about black cats.

Stories about spirits.

Rules about never whistling after dark.

I'd always assumed this was another harmless piece of old-fashioned superstition.

Now it didn't feel harmless.

Not after Corvin.

Not after Sable.

Not after what had happened to my wolf.

I folded the letter slowly.

Then I remembered something else.

The locket.

That night, I searched through my bag until I found it.

The small silver locket my grandmother had pressed into my hand the week before I left Silverpine.

I'd worn it around my neck for the first few days.

Then the chain had irritated my skin, so I'd tucked it away.

I'd never really examined it.

Not properly.

I carried it to the window and turned it over beneath the moonlight.

The silver was old.

The surface had been worn smooth in places from years of handling.

On the back was an engraving I'd always assumed was decorative.

A spiral.

But now I noticed something I'd never seen before.

The spiral wasn't complete.

Three small crescent-shaped marks curved around it, each pointing toward the center.

I traced them with my thumb.

My grandmother had never explained the symbol.

I'd never asked.

Why would I?

It had been a piece of jewelry.

Nothing more.

Until now.

I turned the locket over.

Inside was a faded miniature of my grandmother when she was young.

I stared at her face.

Then at the engraving.

The Vale women carry something the rest of the pack doesn't.

Old blood.

Some questions are safer when nobody answers them.

Three separate clues.

Except they didn't feel separate anymore.

I sat on the edge of my bed, the locket cold in my palm.

For the first time, I allowed myself to consider something I'd been avoiding since Corvin stopped me in that corridor.

Maybe Roman hadn't chosen me simply because of Sable's compatibility results.

Maybe Sable's unusual readings weren't a coincidence.

Maybe Corvin's question about my mother hadn't been random.

And maybe the thing inside me that had reacted during the pregnancy wasn't something that had awakened after I arrived at Blackthorn.

Maybe it had been there all along.

Waiting.

I closed my fingers around the locket.

The secret I had been searching for might not have started in Blackthorn.

It might not even have started with me.

Maybe I'd carried it here from home.

And if that was true, then my family hadn't been as ordinary as I'd always believed.

Not even close.