I felt him cross the ward line.
Not the way I felt the Court's operatives cross the outer forest — cold and organized and pointed. This was warm, deliberate, the specific frequency of someone who had made a decision and was moving through it without hesitation. His frequency in the ward lines shifted from inside to outside with the particular quality of crossing rather than leaving — the difference between someone stepping over a threshold and someone walking away from one.
He wasn't walking away.
He was going toward something.
I kept my hand on the map table and tracked him through the root systems — northeast, steady pace, Edran's frequency alongside his, the two of them moving through the outer forest with the specific signature of wolves who knew how to move without announcing them
