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Lia was cool, but not cruel. No one shoved her in the halls anymore. No one mocked her clothes or her eyes. The spider incident had left a mark—on their minds, and possibly their nightmares. The wolf-born didn't look through her now; they looked at her, uncertain but wary. A few nodded. A few even greeted her.

She continued to whisper wind-warnings to Veyr and Hagan when she caught something strange on the breeze. Hagan was the only one who ever asked her how she knew.

"The wind tells me,” she’d said with a shrug like she was joking.

He didn't know she wasn't.

These days, he followed her more than Veyr did. He said less but watched more. He'd started helping in the herb garden, silently plucking weeds and planting seedlings beside her. He always managed to find her when she wandered off with her camera. And he left things at her doorstep now—pressed wildflowers, feathers, sketches of birds, once even a perfect little carved fox.

She didn't know what to make of any of it. But her heart beat differently when she saw his handwriting on the note that said saw this and thought of you.

The handfasting ceremony loomed. Her sixteenth birthday was weeks away, and with it came the cord—the True Lover's Knot. Elders wove it from one unbroken line, an eternal loop of two hearts intertwined, drawn from old Celtic designs. The wolfborn believed each fated couple bore one half. The knot was tattooed on the inside of the wrist, a private mark made public.

Most wolves chose their partners later, after quests and travels. But the fated ones didn't get to wait. At sixteen, they handfasted—and began a strange, awkward life together: still courting, still growing, but already bonded.

Seren didn't know what scared her more—that it was coming... or that it might not.

She was perched on a low branch by the marsh, her camera raised toward a motionless heron. The light was just right—amber leaking through the reeds, her subject poised like a statue.

Click.

Click.

The heron shifted.

"What are you doing?"

Seren startled, and her finger jerked. The camera caught a lopsided blur of feathers as the heron launched into the air.

She groaned. "Hagan!"

He was grinning up at her, standing too close, the sun behind him making his curls glow like a halo. "Was it something I said?"

"Yes. Your voice is like a dying goose."

"Harsh. I come bearing company and snacks."

"You come bearing ruined shots."

She turned back, camera tucked into her lap , and stuck her tongue out at him. Recently, as they continued to ignore the bond that pulsed between them, an uneasy truce had developed between them.

He tilted his head and squinted. "You always wear your hair like that?"

She narrowed her eyes. "Like what?"

"All... braided up. Like you're hiding it."

She opened her mouth to retort, but he stepped closer and—without asking—reached up and tugged at the end of her braid.

"Hey!" She swatted his hand. "Stop manhandling me!"

"I'm not—manhandling—" He yanked playfully again. "I just want to know what it looks like down."

"You could just ask."

He opened his mouth, paused, and blinked. "Can I see it down?"

"No."