The boy from the dream was leaning against the wall outside the school library on Monday morning.
She would have known him anywhere. The dark eyes, the quality of stillness. In person he was taller than she'd imagined — about six feet, lean, wearing a jacket that had the look of something that had been lived in for years. He had a scar running along his jaw that hadn't been in the dream, and his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the hallway with the patience of someone who spends a lot of time watching hallways.
When Mara came around the corner, he turned and looked at her, and his expression was not surprise.
"You're new," she said, because he was — she'd have remembered him.
"Transferred last week." He pushed off the wall. "You're Mara Vasquez."
"How do you know that?"
"I can smell the bite on you." He said it matter-of-factly, the way you might say I can see you've been in the sun. "It's about a month old. Full moon was Friday. You made it through." He extended his hand. "I'm Rook. Rook Thayer."
Mara looked at his hand, then at his face. The pale gleam in dark eyes — the same light she'd seen in her own mirror. "You're one of them."
"I'm the one they sent to find you." He held the handshake steady. "There's a pack. They were the ones who — they sent the wolf to find you. Or rather, the wolf found you and the pack sent me to explain."
"The wolf didn't find me. I went into the Backs. I — I followed a deer path."
Something flickered across his expression. "Did you? Or did you feel pulled?"
She thought about the light through the trees. The sound of water she couldn't find. The way she'd known, somehow, that the deer path was the right direction.
She didn't answer. He lowered his hand.
"The pack's name is the Harrow," he said. "They've been in these woods for a long time. They don't usually — they don't usually bite anyone outside the family lines. The wolf that bit you is their eldest. His name is Callum, and he's the reason I'm here." He paused. "He said the bite was given to the right person."
"How reassuring," Mara said. "That a wolf I've never met has decided I'm worthy."
"I know how it sounds."
"Does it sound completely insane? Because that's how it sounds."
"Yes," he said. "That's exactly how it sounds. And yet here you are, five-five and a half and growing, with a voice two steps lower than it was a month ago and eyes that catch the light at night." He let that sit. "So maybe insane is a relative term."
The bell rang. The hallway flooded with students. Mara and Rook stood in the stream of them, looking at each other.
"Fine," she said finally. "But you buy me a coffee. A real one, not cafeteria poison." She pointed at him. "And you answer every question I ask, and you don't give me cryptic wolf-oracle nonsense."
He almost smiled. "Deal."