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Clan begins here, in our home, Ashkii Anádlohí. Always hold your sister close, even when you fly far from one another, because how can there be a clan when there are no bonds of family born or found?

“Will you show me more of your world?” she asked Adam, not too proud to gather a final few scraps of time with him, experiences with him, before it was too late.

He scowled. “What? You want me to ignore what just happened?”

“No, but today, you promised to be my beautiful boy.” She wished she could smile at him, but the wall was thick and viscous again, only echoes of emotion getting through. “That boy would’ve taken me exploring in the caves, I think.”

An even deeper scowl, followed by a kiss. “I know you’re manipulating me, but you’re doing it so obviously that I can’t even be mad at you.” Another kiss. “We will discuss this.”

Eleri tucked her head against his chest, let her skin draw in his heat.

A sigh, a nuzzle of her head. “Stubborn wild bird.” A kiss pressed to her hair. “Come on, then.”

And despite the wall, the numbness, their intimacy had left a mark on Eleri. She felt every bit of her clothing as she pulled it on over her body, every tactile sensation multiplied a thousand times over. “I smell like you,” she murmured as she buttoned up her shirt.

A raised eyebrow from where he crouched to pick up his shirt. “You complaining?”

“No.” She drew in another breath. “I won’t shower.” She wanted to take him with her at the end, even if only on her skin.

Chuckling, he came over to kiss her lips with a familiarity that made her ache. “I plan to get my scent all over you on a regular basis, so don’t worry about washing it off.” A deep smile that lit up his entire face. “Let me finish buttoning you up.”

He did so with playful care, and afterward, she buttoned his shirt in turn, and when her mind tried to go into the future, imagine a thousand mornings with him where they got dressed together, she wrenched it back.

Today, she would live in today.

He watched her as she reached back to reknot her hair.

She couldn’t anchor it using the pin because that pin was lost somewhere in the sand, so she slipped off the hair tie she’d returned automatically to her wrist and used that.

She had no use for her private dissonance loop any longer, the most powerful memories in her mind those to do with Adam.

To be overwhelmed by them would be a dream, not a nightmare.

“Your hair was longer the first time we met,” she said. “To your waist.”

“You want me to grow it back?” he asked with a grin. “For you, I’ll deal with the upkeep.”

The idea that he’d just do that for her…The ache grew deeper into her bones. “I…love you exactly as you are, in all the seasons of your life.” She knew that what she thought of as love was a pale imitation, but it was all she had to give.

Adam’s eyes turned falcon. “I love you, too, Eleri. And me and you? We’re forever, through hundreds of seasons to come.”

···

Eleri said nothing in response to his declaration, but Adam had expected that. He hadn’t fought for her once, but never again would he abandon her, even if she thought that the best option. “For today,” he said, “I’m going to show you a secret place.”

She came with him without questions, and the trust of this J who’d been betrayed over and over…

it tore him up even as it shored up his determination.

“I found it as a kid,” he said. “Jacques is the only other person who knows about it as far as I’m aware—we were roaming the caves together at the time. ”

“You weren’t afraid of getting lost?”

Adam shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s a falcon thing or just that this is our home, but we—all of the clan—have always been able to find our way back to the sky from anywhere in the Canyon.”

Though he could navigate the labyrinth with ease, his night vision excellent, he was conscious that to Eleri, the deeper they went, the darker it would get. Taking out his phone, he used the flashlight function to create a glow around them.

He also made sure to keep a careful grip on her, and to assist her up the more jagged or slippery sections.

“A lot of water goes through the Canyon,” he said.

“The arteries of the planet, my shimásání —my grandmother—used to say. WindHaven is lucky to have always had a fresh source of water so close yet hidden from enemies.”

Eleri ran her fingers along a ridge of limestone, as stalactites began to appear in the ceilings above them. “Do you speak the language of your mother’s family? I’ve heard it’s a complex one.”

“Yes. WindHaven was founded by a small group of Diné falcons, and though the composition of our population has changed over the years, we hold true to the ways of our ancestors.” The outside world often referred to them as Navajo, but in their own tongue, they were the Diné, their lyrical—and yes, complex—language Diné Bizaad.

“It’s part of our identity as a clan,” he added. “Built into our very being, the language a living, breathing element of who we are as WindHaven. All the fledglings speak it because they hear it every day.”

He squeezed her hand. “Don’t worry, though, wild bird. We welcome our mates into the clan and embrace their own histories and languages. It is a thing of winged clans—we’re used to distant travelers flying into our lives and our families.

“Amir, my brother-in-law, was born in the Persian Gulf, while Dahlia’s mother flew in from Ecuador, though her own parents are based in Iran.

Harper’s parents were born in the Arctic, went adventuring as young adults, and ended up in another part of Arizona.

” Every winged clan had stories of distant origins among its population.

“Pascal, who you haven’t met yet, was born in Belize, joined the clan as a young man. ”

To date, he didn’t know of any Psy who had mated into a winged clan—but that would change if he had anything to do with it. “Careful here,” he said, “we have to go downhill a bit.”

He used his thighs to stabilize them down the slope, Eleri held close to his side, until they emerged into a much wider and higher conduit where they could walk with ease again. “Let’s see, exactly fifty steps.” He counted them out. “Turn left.”

And there was the entrance.

Smiling, he led Eleri to it after turning off the phone flashlight. “Look. I named it Mirage as a kid.”

A small gasp of air. “What is it?” she asked, walking inside to run her fingers along the sparkling lines of minerals that held a bioluminescent glow that turned the huge cavern into a wonderland.

“I managed to get a sample to Bayani to test. He said it’s bioluminescent moss that’s growing over particular minerals.” He leaned against the edge of the doorway as she walked deeper inside, toward the sound of rushing water from an underground river behind the back wall of the cave.

Eleri stopped in the very center of the cavern, her gaze tilted up. “It’s so quiet here, Adam,” she murmured…just as what felt like a thousand bats took flight from the ceiling and dived down to exit past Adam.

Laughing, he ran in to rescue Eleri, who’d ducked down with her arms over her head. “Sorry!” He put his arm around her. “They don’t usually move at this time of day—we must’ve disturbed them.”

They ran out and down the passageway, Eleri’s breath fast and shallow when they stopped. “I’ve never seen bats before,” she gasped out. “Much less in flight.”

“Hang around the Canyon at sunset and you’ll get quite the show.” He began to walk them out, phone flashlight back on. “I still haven’t figured out how these exit to the outside, but they’re part of why I haven’t brought others down here. It’s their home.”

Eleri leaned into him, her hand tight on his. “Thank you for showing me. It’s been a day beyond anything I could’ve imagined.”

Adam nuzzled her. “Do you have the energy for one more thing? I’d like to introduce you to my sister.”

A long pause before Eleri said, “I would be so proud to meet her…though I will have to shower beforehand.”

Throwing back his head, he laughed, because there she was. His girl. Locked behind the gray walls of reconditioning, but still fighting, still breaking out of her cell at unexpected times.

No matter what Eleri believed, she was far from done.

···

Since Saoirse was at work at the lab where they manufactured delicate and cutting-edge aeronautical parts, he messaged her to ask if she could take a break that afternoon. That wasn’t always a given with Saoirse—if she got into a project, she’d work straight through for hours.

Her response was very Saoirse: You finally going to introduce me to the woman at whom you are making goo-goo eyes per my eldest and very smart child?

I was about to disavow you as a sibling.

Bring food with you—I forgot to eat lunch.

I also want to interrogate her in private, so we’re not going out.

“My sister’s protective of me,” he told Eleri as he drove them to the plant through Raintree, the requested food in the back of the car.

“Can’t quite stop seeing me as her little brother.

” She’d held him tight after their parents’ deaths, the two of them locked in a grief only they could understand.

Because in that moment, they’d lost the twin anchors of their world.

“Even though you’re her wing leader?”

“Context,” he reminded her. “Family interactions are a different matter from clan interactions.”

Eleri looked forward, at the low curving building toward which he’d just turned. “Underground?”

“Yeah, most of the facility is underground. Easier to maintain climate control.” He took a minute to park the vehicle in the spot assigned to the CEO.

Eleri looked at the sign, then at him.

Adam didn’t blame her for the reaction—most Psy had never been close enough to changelings to understand the working structure of their packs and clans.

“The leader of a clan or pack is also always the CEO of our businesses. Being wing leader isn’t only about dominance or strength—to be wing leader is to care and to protect and to tend. ”

Catching a movement out of the corner of his eye, he glanced over to see Saoirse striding over dressed in a white jumpsuit that she’d accessorized with a beaded belt that had once been their mother’s. She always walked with intense purpose, his big sister. “There she is, right on time.”

Falcon stirring within, he turned to Eleri. “I’m so fucking happy that I get to introduce you to my sister.” The fury of his delight filled his heart. “Family is the foundation of a clan, the foundation of me . Let me show you a huge part of that foundation.”