KieranI was burning toast when Brody came downstairs, still in the dinosaur pajamas, the fox tucked under one arm.He stopped in the kitchen doorway and watched me scrape the black off a slice with a butter knife. I didn't turn around right away and I didn't apologize for it. Leah had told me to stay unfussy, and I was learning that mostly meant doing ordinary things in front of him without making them into events."That one's ruined," he said."It is.""You can have mine."He hadn't made one yet, but he said it like a settled deal, so I put the knife down and let him have the good bread. We ate standing at the counter. He told me the pterosaur lecture had a second part, and I said I had time.He didn't ask about the garage. He walked there on his own after breakfast, as if he'd been circling it all morning, and stopped in front of the red bicycle with the ribbon still on the handlebars."Is it for me?""It's here if you want it," I said. "It stays at this house, for when you visit.

LeahKieran's father did not come inside until he had been invited, and he made the waiting look like a courtesy rather than a test. He stood at the foot of the steps with both hands folded over his cane and let the silence stretch until Kieran said, in a voice I barely recognized, "Come in."They put him in the east sitting room, the one with the long windows, because it was the only room in the house where Kieran had never been happy as a child. I understood that choice only later. At the time I just saw a man of seventy sitting very straight in a chair too small for his pride, accepting tea he did not drink."I won't pretend this is a social call," he said."I didn't expect you to," Kieran said."You didn't invite me to the ceremony.""I did. You declined.""I declined to endorse it. That is a different thing." His eyes moved to me for the first time since he'd arrived, pale and unhurried. "Madam Draven.""Leah is fine.""I'm sure it is. I will not be using it." He set the cup down

KieranDex found her in four days, which told me how little effort my father had put into hiding her and how much he'd relied on my never asking."Isolde Draven kept her maiden name for the first few years," he said, laying a single sheet on my desk. "Then she dropped it. She lives two hours south, in a town called Marren. Runs a small bookshop with a woman named Odile. No clan registration, no flags, nothing. As far as the records go, she simply stopped being one of us."I read the address three times. It was an ordinary street."Do you want me to arrange a visit?" Dex asked. "A courtesy call first, so she isn't surprised?""No." I folded the paper and put it in my pocket. "I'll go myself. Don't send anyone ahead of me."He looked as though he wanted to argue and decided against it. "Alpha," he said instead, and then, more quietly, "Kieran. I'm glad you asked."I didn't know what to do with that, so I nodded and left.Leah had cleared her whole afternoon without being asked. I found

LeahIsolde poured the tea with a steady hand, but I could tell it was taking effort.The flat above the bookshop was small and warm. The ceiling sloped, the chairs didn't match, and there were books on every wall. Odile, a tall woman with flour on her sleeve, took one look at Kieran in the doorway, said nothing, and went to turn on the oven. I liked her right away."I don't know how this is supposed to go," Isolde said, putting a plate of shortbread on the table. "I practiced this for years. None of it works now that he's here.""He doesn't know either," I said. "He's been holding that cup for ten minutes and hasn't taken a sip.""I can hear you," Kieran said from the window."You were meant to."Isolde laughed, surprised, and looked from him to me. She didn't look suspicious. She looked relieved, like someone who expected a disaster and got a normal afternoon.Odile called us to dinner an hour later. The table was full: roast chicken, a big dish of potatoes, a salad nobody touched.

KieranMy father lived in the old family house on the hill, the one I grew up in. I hadn't been inside it for over a year.The housekeeper let me in without a word. She looked at my face and stepped aside. My father was in his study, reading by the window, and he didn't look up when I came in."You went to see her," he said."Yes.""Dex told me. I assumed he would." He turned a page. "Sit down, Kieran.""I'll stand."He closed the book and finally looked at me. He didn't seem angry. He seemed tired, and a little curious, as if I were a problem he was about to solve."She told you I kept you from her," he said."She told me she wrote to me every birthday for eleven years. I never got a single letter.""Letters are a way to pull a child back into something he is better off without.""Did you read them?"He said nothing."Did you read them?" I asked again."I read the first few," he said. "Then I stopped. They were all the same.""Where are they now?""Burned. Years ago."I had expected

LeahBrody arrived at ten, as promised, with his backpack, his fox, and a long list of things he wanted to do."First the bike," he said, before he even got out of the car. "Then the pterosaur book. Then I want to see where the Alpha sleeps.""He sleeps in a bed," I said. "It's not very interesting.""I still want to see it."Kieran was waiting on the steps. He had changed his shirt twice that morning. I knew because I'd watched him do it. Now he crouched down to Brody's height and held out his hand like they were making a deal."Welcome back."Brody shook it seriously. "Can I call you something other than Alpha?""What did you have in mind?""Kieran. That's your name.""That works," Kieran said. "I'd like that."Brody nodded, satisfied, and ran off toward the garage. Kieran stayed crouched for a second longer. Then he stood up and looked at me."He just used my name.""I noticed.""That's good, right?""It's very good."He let out a breath. "I thought it would feel bigger. It feels s

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