Lenora's POV
Spring came slowly to the bridge settlement, the way spring comes to places that have known hard winters — tentatively, testing each day with a little more warmth before committing.
The refuge opened on the first genuinely warm day of the year. Twelve residents, two full-time healers besides myself, one rotating medic from Ironbridge who came on Bramwell's authorization. The charter was printed on good parchment and framed in the entryway, the council's seal and the Alpha's mark side by side.
Mira came for the opening with her grandmother. She stood in the main room and turned in a slow circle, looking at the herbs drying from the beams and the clean folded bandages and the shelf of medicines.
"It looks like the confluence cottage," she said. "But bigger."
"Same idea," I
