ALESSIA
The trial run happened on the twenty-eighth.
Aiden called it a field assessment. Jasper called it a dry run. Carter said it was a controlled exposure test. Ryker said it was necessary and did not give it a name, which was the most accurate description of all of them.
The plan was simple in its structure and complex in its execution: I would move through the city for four hours as Alex George, in environments that would each test a different dimension of the disguise. A coffee shop for ambient social interaction. The pack market for crowd navigation. The Academy perimeter for institutional response — how my wolf read the pack boundary, how the pack boundary read me.
I dressed in the dark of Logan's old room before the others were up. Academy-adjacent clothes — dark jeans, a plai
