We moved fast and mostly silent, the six of us strung out along a trail Fen knew by instinct, through the outer edge of the Old Growth's territory where the trees were younger and meaner and the ground tried to trip you. Oren kept pace without complaint, which told me everything about what sixty years of field work had built in him.
I walked and thought about Moonstone Hall.
I had not been back since the night of the ceremony. Since Chapter 1, since the dress my mother had spent three nights fixing, since the smell of the place like a funeral for someone still alive, which had been me. The Hall with its arched windows and white candles and the emblem over the dais, the wolf caught in thorns. Since Kael's face going blank and deliberate while he said no in front of a thousand people and I
