I left for the south on the night the first moon reached full, and I never made it past my own gate.
The plan was simple, and it was good. Out the water postern at moonrise, south along the gorge rim to the old bridge, cross in the dark, and let the new body do what it was made for: four days of territory full of wolves who couldn't hear me coming. Rook's maps were folded against my ribs. Alaric walked me down to the postern himself, through the sleeping Keep, and at the low door with the river cold coming through it he stopped, and there was a whole speech in his face, and being Alaric, he spent none of it.
"Come back," is all he said.
"That's the plan."
"Plans." He reached out and, deliberate, unhurried, tucked a strand of hair behind my ear, the silver one, his fingertips grazing my
