The assembly didn't end so much as transform, the formal structure of council business dissolving into something more like a war council, people pulling chairs closer, voices lowering into the particular focus of a pack that had just understood the size of what it was actually facing.
I found myself at the center of it in a way I hadn't expected, Thorne on one side laying out fragments of theory he'd never had reason to organize before, Amara on the other translating old Ironveil practices into language the rest of the room could use, and somewhere in the middle of it, Kael's hand still finding mine every few minutes, a small, steady anchor in a morning that had rearranged itself three times before breakfast.
"The first thing we need," Thorne said, spreading a rough map of Silvermont's t
