WREN'S POV
The summons came just after the light outside my window had started bleeding orange into the stone walls of my quarters, the same quiet knock as the evening before, the same silent wolf leading me back through corridors I still hadn't fully learned to navigate on my own. My stomach had been in knots since the walkway conversation that morning, the words last hybrid circling relentlessly through my thoughts no matter how hard I tried to force them into some quiet corner of my mind where they couldn't do further damage.
Kade's study looked the same as it had the night before, shelves of maps and reports lining the walls, candles already lit against the gathering dusk, though he looked different than he had then. Something had settled into his expression that hadn't been there be
