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“I was going to.”

“I know. You didn’t.”

“Now was not the time for it.”

Garnet held her gaze. “It never is.”

Mirelle walked home through the wet streets, the Lantern drifting alongside. Someone had been tuning her sadness the way you tune a radio signal, while she went on making lists and deciding that this, the invisible, the unnecessary, was who she was.

The anger arrived cleanly. Not the hot kind. The cold, clear kind. It settled into her sternum and stayed there, still and certain. The Lantern beside her pulsed once in amber, then returned to its usual glow. She was two streets from the café when she heard him behind her. Mirelle recognized his footsteps now: the pace and the weight. She turned.

Tor, in the dark, a jacket pulled on quickly, hair rumpled by the wind. He’d come from the ops center without an umbrella, wet the way you got wet when you moved through rain and ignored it. His eyes stayed on her. Two feet away, in the dark and the light rain, with nothing held back in his face. She was learning to read this one: what he wore when he had no professional layer available and wasn’t trying to find one.

Mirelle closed the two feet and laid the flat of her palm on his chest, not dramatic, but present, and lifted her eyes to his. He covered her hand with his and held it there. The rain on the cobblestones. The ward line underfoot. The Lantern drifted three feet behind, understanding it was not the point. “Are you all right?”

“I’m angry. The cold kind. Althea says that’s the useful kind.”

“She’s right.”

“I know.” She let out a breath. His hand was warm over hers, and she was going to stand here in the rain for as long as she needed to. “It helps, having something specific to be angry at.”

He tilted his head down until his forehead nearly touched hers, not quite close enough for her to feel his warmth. “You don’t have to be angry alone.”

“I know.”

“Not a reassurance. A statement of fact.”

“I know that too.” Her eyes lifted. This close, she could see the set of his mouth and the focus he got when his wolf was present and paying attention. Both of them. “Thursday. You’re showing me the rigging.”

“Thursday.”

She stepped back. He slowly let go of her hand. She said nothing. The Lantern returned to her left side like a creature resuming its post. She put her phone in her pocket and kept walking. The anger was still there. So was the warmth, steady beneath it, certain now, arrived, not going anywhere.

FOURTEEN

TOR

The northern perimeter had been wrong for three days. Not dramatically wrong. The trail ran too quiet, the ward line sat a little low, and the cracked pillar tugged at everything near it, like a bad knee throwing off your whole stride. Tor had increased the trail patrols four days ago. He hadn’t told Mirelle, partly as a professional decision and partly because Thursday was tomorrow and he had priorities. The overlap between his professional priorities and everything else was currently limited.

Pike clocked his distraction thirty seconds into the patrol, which was faster than Tor had expected. “You’re staring into the woods like a divorced poet.”

“I’m reading the trail.”

“You’re emotionally yearning. There’s a distinction.” Pike adjusted the equipment pack on his shoulder. “Also, you checked your phone twice. You never check your phone on patrol.”

“I check my phone on patrol.”

“You check the monitoring app. You don’t check messages and then smile a little at the screen.”

“I didn’t smile.”

“You did a Tor-smile. They’re tiny, but I’ve been cataloging them. This one was a 3.2 on the Tor-smile scale.”

“There is no Tor-smile scale.”

“There is now. I started it after the boardwalk incident.” Tor said nothing. Pike took this as confirmation and seemed pleased. “The rigging talk went well, I take it.”

“We’re on patrol.”