"You did it."
I turn. Anna's in the boathouse doorway, awake, watching me, and her face is soft with something like wonder.
"I could feel it," she says, coming down to the water. "Through the bond. You went somewhere, reached for something, and instead of the wall going up, the way it always does, you just, held. You're holding him right now, aren't you. He's up, and you're holding him."
"Barely," I admit. "It's like holding a live wire. I could lose it any second. But yes. He's up, and I'm holding, and I'm not buried and I'm not loose." I look at my own hands, steady, human, with the wolf right there under the surface. "You were right. All along. This is the thing I was too afraid to try. And it took nearly dying to make me try it."
She reaches me and takes my hands, and the wolf does
