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KENDALL

T he voice slips through sleep like smoke through a cracked window.

Not loud. Not sharp. But certain.

Kendall Lysira Bolvi.

My eyes snap open.

I’m breathless before I’m even fully awake, heart pounding like I just came back from something deep—like I was under and didn’t know it.

It echoes again.

Kendall Lysira Bolvi. Come.

I sit up in the cot, the blanket falling off my shoulders, sticky with sweat. My hands tremble.

That name—my name— not the one I grew up with, but the one buried in my blood—it shakes something loose.

My voice is hoarse when I whisper it aloud.

“Kendall… Lysira… Bolvi.”

The air stills.

And then something inside me ignites. Not fear. Not magic. A calling.

But it’s not the runes this time. Not the dark weight of the Hollowed. This is... different. This is personal. Blood .

It doesn’t ask. It pulls.

I shift without thinking.

My bones break and knit in an instant, and the cold floor meets four paws instead of two feet. I barely register the movement of the others as I bolt out the half-rusted door of the safehouse and into the trees.

Behind me, I hear movement.

Callum’s voice, low and groggy, barely human. “She’s moving. She’s going .”

“Something’s happening,” Elias grunts. “We need to follow her.”

I don’t look back. I don’t stop. The forest is a blur—smells and sound and wind through fur. And still that voice. That name.

Come to me.

It’s warm now. Not demanding.

Familiar.

And suddenly, I know .

It’s him.

I follow the scent trail I didn’t know I knew. Past the eastern ridgeline, through a twisted gulley, down a ravine that smells like sulfur and moss way outside of the city.

Callum’s wolf form appears beside me in the trees, silent and steady, his presence like a tether in the chaos.

But I’m the one leading. The one who knows where he is. And when we break through the final line of trees and hit the clearing, I see him.

Dad.

Barely conscious. Slumped against a stone outcropping. Hands bound behind him, ankle bleeding, but alive.

I shift back mid-sprint, skin rippling, breath tearing through my lungs as I fall to my knees beside him.

“Dad.”

His eyes flutter open, and for a second I’m eight years old again—kneeling beside him after one of his bar brawls, asking if he’s okay, if he remembers me .

But this time, he sees me.

“Kendall,” he rasps. “ You heard me. ”

“You called me,” I whisper.

“I didn’t know if it would work. But I tried. Through the bond. Through our blood.”

Callum shifts back beside me, already scanning the trees, tense and half-feral. Elias joins him seconds later, panting, but wide-eyed.

“What happened?” I ask.

“They had me,” Edmund says. “Brood scouts. Took me while I was tracking their old ward trail. They thought they needed me to unlock the chamber.”

“They thought wrong,” Elias says grimly.

“Yeah,” Edmund nods. “They were wrong. And when the chamber opened without me? They realized they didn’t need an old key. They needed the new one. ”

He looks at me.

My stomach twists. “They need me. ”

“They think you can awaken it. Control it. Wield it.”

I swallow hard. “Can I?”

“I don’t know,” Edmund says. “But they’re betting everything that you can.”

Callum kneels beside me, voice low. “We have to move. They might double back.”

Edmund groans, trying to stand. “Cut the rope. I’ll walk.”

I slice through the bindings with one clawed swipe. As he rises, he stumbles but I catch him. He leans on me more than he should, and for once, I let him. Because he’s not just a drunk. Not just a liar. He’s my father. And for the first time in years, we’re not hiding from each other.

“You should’ve told me sooner,” I whisper.

“I know.”

“You should’ve told Adora.”

“I know. ”

“We’re in this now,” I say. “No more half-truths. No more disappearing.”

He looks at me then, full on, blood drying at his temple. “You’re not a little girl anymore.”

“No,” I say. “I’m not.”

Callum touches my back gently. Just his hand. Warm and steady.

“Let’s get him out of here,” he says.

But when I move to help, Edmund stops me.

“Kendall,” he says. “You know this is only going to get worse, right?”

“I do.”

“You ready to carry this?”

I meet his eyes.

And I say the truth I’ve been running from since the first time I felt the pull of the moon.

“I already am.”