LYRA
Willow looked smaller in the morning light.
Not physically, she was the same height she'd always been, standing in the packhouse entrance with her bag slung over her shoulder and her chin tilted at that specific angle she uses when she's being braver than she feels. But there was something about the combination of the early hour, the bag, and the fact that she was leaving that made the whole scene feel far too familiar, and I didn't like it one bit.
"You don't have to go back yet," I said.
"Silas's orders." She said it with the practiced neutrality of someone who'd repeated a phrase so many times it had lost all its original feeling. "The curfew's lifted. The pack's calmer, and he says my training isn't finished."
"Your training," I echoed.
"I know." She shifted the bag on her s
