Marcus found me at the training ring.
Not during a session — the ring was empty, Petra elsewhere, the specific quiet of a space that was mine even when I wasn't using it. I had been sitting at its edge doing the careful-eating thing, the small-amounts-frequently thing, the ginger tea in a flask Darius had filled without being asked.
Marcus sat beside me.
He had a letter.
Not the dramatic version — not the urgent summons, not the crisis delivery. Just Marcus, holding an envelope with the expression of a man who has read something and is deciding how to hand it over.
"Soran wrote back," he said.
Soran — the second of the three wolves who had wanted to follow me from Silver Creek. The one Aldis had told him about, the one in Vancouver.
"What does it say?" I asked.
Marcus looked at the
