The letter arrived on a Friday.
Selene knew something had changed in the pack house before she came downstairs that morning. She felt it the way she felt most things, not through sound or sight but through the quality of the air, the particular texture of a space where people were being careful about something. She had grown up in a house where carefulness meant danger and she had learned early to read it the way other people read weather.
She dressed quickly and went downstairs.
The kitchen was wrong first. Greta was at the counter as always but her movements were tighter than usual, efficient in a way that was closer to controlled than comfortable. Two pack members who normally ate breakfast with ease and noise were sitting at the far end, their plates barely touched, talking in low v
