The morning after the Thaw Feast started like most others: too early, too loud, and with someone swearing about spilled porridge.
Aria woke with a headache that was equal parts smoke, laughter and secondhand ale. Her wolf, at least, seemed smugly content. Every time she drifted toward fretting about what had happened in the hall, that solid chorus — Aria of Nightfall — rolled back through her in answer.
You heard them, the wolf said. Ours.
“Bossy,” Aria muttered, swinging her legs out of bed.
Downstairs, the hall looked like a battlefield. Benches skewed. A cup under one table that had no business being there. A scrap of garland clinging valiantly to a beam. Mara already had three unlucky teenagers conscripted into cleanup duty.
“Don’t you dare,” Mara barked when one of them tried to
