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Violet shook her head. “We should take one of these boxes back to the compound. We can study it more there.”

Noah nodded at her suggestion, heaving a box on his shoulder and carrying it outside.

Violet smirked and glanced back at me. “He’s much different from his brother.”

I mustered a smile back. “Night and day difference.”Just like me and Selena, I thought to myself.

“If you had to work with one on a patrol or something, which one would you pick?”

The answer was easy. “Noah, he’s much quieter.”

Violet shrugged. “He’s sweet, but you can’t deny thatJesse…”

She trailed off, her tone curling around the beta’s name with reverence. I arched an eyebrow at her unfinished speculation.

Violet suddenly blushed. “Never mind.”

I chuckled to myself and ducked through the tent flap.

We made a plan. Jesse would return to Alpha House to guard Cersey’s amulet, while Orion would visit Terra for a tracking spell.

“You’ll need something that belongs to him,” I pointed out, relieved I could at least be of some use.

Orion only nodded.

Cara would debrief the other pack protectors on the situation. And so, we made our way back to the compound, this time as our human selves so Noah could carry the metal box of human files. I shadowed just behind Orion in case he needed me.

Jesse saw it as an opportunity to broach a sensitive subject. “We should talk about what happens, in case we aren’t successful.”

I held my breath at the beta’s audacity, catching his meaning immediately.

Orion was a little slower on the uptake. “What do you mean?”

Jesse remained dauntless. “If we can’t find your father. Or if wecan, but it’s too late.”

Orion rounded on him, stopping suddenly. Our group also stopped, turning to watch the exchange. I felt my shoulders tense in response to Orion’s flare of anger, and I surreptitiously crouched, edging my way next to him, ready to defend against anything Jesse might hurl in his direction.

Jesse, miraculously sensing some boundary he overstepped, backed two steps away, his hands held up. “I am not saying it’s going to happen. We should just be prepared.”

Orion’s eyebrow was a flat line as he scowled. “And how do you recommend doing that?”

“You’re the next alpha after Nathaniel. You’ve known this your entire life. The reality may just happen sooner than you expected.”

I held my breath, waiting for Orion’s response. But he just stared at the beta for several long minutes. Then, without a word, he turned back around and marched off without slowing, ending the discussion.

Jesse frowned and started calling out to him. “Don’t walk away—”

“He understands,” I hissed.

Jesse blinked, startled at my outburst. But his face quickly hardened. “He needs to do more than understand.”

I sniffed. “Stop worrying. He will do the right thing. Maybe you should worry about guarding that amulet.”

To my surprise, Jesse didn’t say anything back. Moments later, his shoulder bumped into mine as he shoved past me.

As we neared the compound, we split up to complete our respective roles, and I headed for my house to alert Mom that her services were needed. That morning, she had been moping about Selena’s leaving. When I told her we needed a tracking spell, she came to life, bustling around the kitchen as she prepared the materials. I sat at the table and watched her retrieve her scrying mirror, a large oval piece of glass with a silver frame, lightly tarnished at the edges from its age. Next to it, she smoothed down a map of the area that included major points of interest in Northern California.

She also placed candles at each corner of the table to represent the four cardinal directions. Then, she set a red palm stone, a bulbous nodule of iron oxide at the north end. When Orion arrived, she was ready, her face smeared with lines of charcoal to grant her divination insight.