"Harper left instructions."
"I saw them."
"Did you read them."
"Yes."
"All of them."
"Lily."
"Because the last time you skimmed something important you missed the part about—"
"I read all of them."
I looked at the folded paper on the table. Harper's handwriting, small and precise, covering both sides. She'd left it propped against the lamp with a single line on the outside that said "don't overthink it which was easy for her to say.
"She says we start with the old words," I said.
"Yes."
"Do you know them."
"My Alpha taught them to me when I became Beta. Every bonded pair in Stoneclaw learned them." A pause. "I haven't said them since."
I looked at him.
At what that cost him to say quietly, without drama, just the plain fact of it.
"Then we learn them together," I said. "Show
