Cassandra's POV
The pack was different the next day.
I felt it before I understood it. A kind of tightness in the air when I walked through common areas. Conversations that stopped a beat too quickly. Eyes that followed me and looked away before I could catch them properly. Whatever had happened after the garden situation had filtered through the pack the way things do in closed communities, absorbed and interpreted and added to.
I stayed close to the east wing. I ate in my room. I read the book Mira had left outside my door two days ago and tried not to think about the tribunal Mira had mentioned that morning in a hushed voice before she hurried away.
By midday I needed air.
I went to the covered walkway on the south side, the long one that ran between the house and the storage outbu
