The shadow-burn on Selah's wrist was gone but the cracked wall was still there.
Soren sat in the transport shuttle watching the academy shrink through the rear window, running numbers.
Three bond frequencies still active in his head from Pack Sense, shadow and ice and fire, all awake, all territorial, none of them thinking about the Fracture.
He was the only one thinking about the Fracture.
The shuttle was Bureau-issued.
Joan had arranged it with credentials that made the logistics office stop asking questions.
Four seats. Soren in the back left.
Joan across the aisle with a tablet balanced on her knee, scrolling through field data without looking up.
Troy in the front row, his knight's frequency a low hum behind his seat like heat off asphalt.
Grimm was under Soren's chair, her shut eyes facing the floor, body taut against his boots.
Troy hadn't been in their class. Joan pulled strings for that too.
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