로그인Marcus stood at the pack office window when they arrived, still dressed in formal council attire despite the hour, his posture carrying none of the commanding certainty she remembered from their first meeting weeks ago. Something in the set of his shoulders looked almost tired, a man carrying more weight than his title usually allowed him to show."Thank you for coming," he said, turning as they entered. "I know my son has reservations about my involvement. I'm asking you to hear me out regardless."Seraphina glanced at Caden, who kept his expression carefully neutral despite the tension she could feel radiating off him, a remnant of their argument over accepting his father's help weeks earlier."I'm listening," she said, settling into the chair across from his desk. "That's not the same as agreeing to anything.""Understood." Marcus remained standing, something almost respectful in the small distance he kept between them. "I've spent the past week using connections I've held quietly
Morning came whether Seraphina had slept or not, and academy life didn't pause for revelations that had shaken her to the core hours earlier. She dragged herself into uniform, the collar still sitting slightly crooked no matter how many times she adjusted it, and made her way to Professor Wren's history seminar with Dene's words still echoing cold through her chest.The classroom felt strange after the vault, too bright, too ordinary, students filing in around her discussing exams and weekend plans as though the world hadn't just tilted sideways sometime after midnight."You look like you didn't sleep," Orion said, sliding into the seat beside her, still moving carefully from his own injuries but steadier every day."I didn't.""Bad night?""You could say that." She kept her voice low as Wren began taking attendance, old habit from months of sharing whispered asides in exactly this seat. "I'll tell you later. Somewhere that isn't a room a professor might overhear."Wren's voice droned
Rowan moved fast through the corridors, Seraphina close behind him, her wolf already restless with alarm beneath her skin. Isadora followed without being asked, the old folder still clutched tight against her chest."What happened," Seraphina asked, struggling to match his pace. "Start from the beginning.""Dene sent me a message two hours ago," Rowan said, not slowing. "Said she'd found something in the deeper archive stacks, something about the witness territories, something she wanted to verify before she brought it to either of us." His jaw was tight with barely restrained worry. "She was supposed to meet me an hour later. She never came.""Maybe she got absorbed in the research," Isadora offered. "You know how she gets.""I know how she gets when she's excited about a discovery. This wasn't that. Her message sounded frightened." Rowan's voice had gone grim. "I went to find her myself when she didn't show. Her office was empty. Lantern still lit. Papers scattered like she'd left i
The pack member's urgency didn't ease once they reached the east gate. Caden rose from the bench, held Seraphina's gaze one last moment, unfinished words still hanging heavy between them, and left with a final glance that promised more than his voice managed to say aloud."We'll talk about this later," he said, already turning. "I promise you that."Then he was gone, swallowed into the dark toward whatever news had arrived urgent enough to interrupt a night that had already cost them both more than either had planned to give.Seraphina sat alone in the garden a while after, her chest still unsteady from everything he'd almost said, before exhaustion and restlessness both pushed her back toward the dormitory instead of dwelling further on words left incomplete.She found Isadora awake in the small common room, curled into a chair with a book open and unread in her lap, staring at nothing in particular."You should be asleep," Seraphina said, settling into the chair across from her."So
Isadora's presence settled into the dormitory over the following days, quiet and careful, Maren's now empty room reassigned to her by pack decision, and Seraphina found something strange and comforting in the sound of another person moving through the hall she'd once shared with someone whose loyalty had turned out to be borrowed, bought by fear rather than friendship.Caden found her that evening in the small garden behind the healing wing, sitting alone on a low stone bench, watching the last light fade over grounds that no longer felt entirely safe no matter how many wards protected them."You've been quiet today," he said, settling beside her without asking permission, close enough that his shoulder brushed hers."I've been counting," she admitted. "Twenty-two days left. It feels like both too much time and not nearly enough.""I know." He reached for her hand, and she let him take it, grateful for the simple warmth of contact after a day spent buried in old texts and impossible c
The Blackthorn family summons arrived at dawn, delivered by formal courier rather than the usual academy messengers, black wax seal pressed into cream paper that Isadora recognized before she'd even broken it open. She read it once in the privacy of her room, then dressed carefully, deliberately, in the formal uniform reserved for founding family occasions, and walked to her family's private wing with a steadiness she didn't entirely feel.Her grandmother waited in the same hall that held the old portrait, gathered now with her mother and two senior family advisors, all of them arranged with the particular formality that meant this conversation had already been decided before Isadora arrived to participate in it."You've kept us waiting on this decision long enough," her grandmother said without preamble, gold hair silvered with age but no less severe for it. "Damian Voss's representative arrives within the hour. I trust you understand what's expected of you in that meeting.""I under







