(Luna) The worry about Jace clings to me for days after that phone call.
His hand has never produced anything more than stick figures and lopsided suns, yet somehow he’d rendered my wolf form with enough precision that Nana Mae’s voice had cracked describing it.
I can’t reach across the distance and fix whatever’s pulling him into visions he never asked for.
So I do the only thing I know how to do with fear that has nowhere to go: I shove it down, deep enough that it stops interrupting every class, though it lingers at the edges of my thoughts like a bruise I keep forgetting not to touch.
I’m still tangled in those thoughts, walking out of afternoon lecture with my bag slung over one shoulder, when a familiar voice cuts through the noise.
“There she is.” Zephyr falls into step beside me, his white-blond hair catching the light, ice-blue eyes bright with that same dare-you grin he wore the first time we met.
“I’ve been watching you, you know,” he says, voice pitched teasing.
“That’s not creepy at all,” I mutter.
“Not like that.” He waves a hand, unbothered.
“I mean I’ve been watching you train.
You’re fast, Eclipse Girl.
Faster than you should be this early into shifting.
I’m impressed, and I don’t impress easy,” he adds, tone edged with genuine admiration.
“Should I be flattered?” I ask, arching a brow.
“You should be terrified, because I’m about to challenge you to something,” he says, voice dropping into mock gravity before breaking into a grin.
“A race.
Wolf form, through the training grounds, out past the tree line and back.
Loser buys the winner coffee from the village beyond the wards.” “You’re on,” I say before I’ve fully thought it through.
Surprise flickers across Zephyr’s face, and underneath it I recognize the pull, the same one that used to send me out for one more lap when Coach Pearson called it a day, the same stubborn refusal to let a beatable number sit there unbeaten.
I built my whole life back home on this exact instinct, chasing personal records with a hunger that scared my mother sometimes.
A mountain and a mark on my forehead haven’t changed a thing.
Zephyr laughs, delighted, like he expected exactly this reaction.
“That’s what I like to hear,” he says, already backing toward the training grounds, grin impossibly wide.
“Meet me at the old oak in ten minutes.
Try not to chicken out.” “I don’t chicken out,” I call after him.
“We’ll see,” he shoots back, voice light with challenge.
We shift side by side at the base of the old oak, and the second my paws hit the ground, every worry about Jace, about the Undercroft, about Kael’s unreadable expressions falls away.
Nothing remains but the electric thrill of the run.
For the first time in weeks, my mind goes perfectly, blessedly quiet.
Zephyr’s wolf is a blur of white beside me, lean and built for exactly this kind of speed.
I push everything into keeping pace with him, my paws eating up the ground beneath the tree line, my silver corona flaring faint with the effort.
For a few glorious seconds we’re neck and neck, tearing through the trees so fast the world blurs into streaks of green and gold, and something close to joy rises in my chest for the first time since arriving at Hollowcrest.
Then he pulls ahead.
Not by much.
But enough.
We cross back to the old oak together, both of us breathless, and I know before I even shift back that he’s beaten me, if only barely.
The old, familiar sting rises anyway, sharp and childish, the same voice that used to hiss *not good enough* at every silver medal.
“You’re fast.” Zephyr shifts back first, grinning, not bothering to hide how pleased he is with himself.
“Faster than anyone I’ve raced in years.
But not fast enough,” he says, tone smug.
“Barely,” I say, shifting back myself, chest still heaving, the word coming out sharper than I intend.
“Barely still counts.” He claps a hand against my shoulder, entirely too pleased with himself.
“Come on.
I believe someone owes me coffee,” he says, voice light with triumph.
We slip out past the wards together, down into the small village tucked at the base of the mountain, and Zephyr insists on paying for both our coffees anyway, waving off my protest with an easy shrug.
“You put up a good fight,” he says, voice softening.
“Feels wrong making the loser pay when the loser almost won.” The sting fades some, though it doesn’t vanish, folding itself into the same place where I keep every other thing I haven’t finished being angry about.
We settle into a corner table of the little café, steam curling up from both our cups, and for a while the conversation stays easy, teasing, exactly the kind of nothing that’s followed us since the day we met.
He tells me about growing up in a den where speed was currency, about siblings who raced him through hallways before he could properly walk, and I find myself laughing more freely than I have in days.
“Kael Blackthorn’s watching you too, by the way,” he says between sips of coffee, voice far too casual for something that lands like a stone in my chest.
“But not because he’s scared.” Heat rushes straight up into my face before I can stop it, my whole body betraying me at once.
“Ah.” Zephyr’s grin stretches wide, delighted.
“So it’s like that,” he says, voice rich with mischief.
“Shut up.” I throw a sugar packet at him, though the warmth in my face doesn’t fade nearly as fast as I’d like.
Then, without much warning, the charm slips off his face, replaced by something more serious than I’ve seen from him before.
“My mother sits close enough to the Council to hear things before they’re supposed to be heard,” he says, quieter now, turning his cup slowly between his hands instead of looking at me.
“Ever since Greymane asked you that question in the main hall, what bloodline produces a corona like that, and what it cost the last wolf who carried one, the Elders have been asking it in closed rooms every single day since.
Nobody’s got an answer they’re willing to say out loud yet, and that’s exactly what’s got them scared.
Whatever your mark actually is, it’s got people talking in rooms you’re not invited into,” he says, tone flat with warning.
“That’s comforting,” I say, voice dry.
“I’m not trying to comfort you.
I’m trying to warn you.” His ice-blue eyes finally lift to meet mine, steady despite the mischief still living somewhere underneath.
“You’re fast, Luna.
Faster than you should be, and people notice things like that.
My mother’s already asked me twice how you’re keeping pace with wolves who’ve had years on you.
Just watch yourself.
That’s all,” he says, voice low and even.
I don’t have an answer ready.
The weight of his words settles heavy in my chest, pressing down alongside everything I’ve carried since Jace’s drawing arrived uninvited in my thoughts, alongside the strange new knowledge that Kael’s attention isn’t only suspicion.
Both truths sit in me with nowhere to go.
For a moment neither of us says anything else, the easy warmth of the afternoon cooling into something far more uncertain, and this time, it doesn’t fully thaw before we leave the café.