She told him in late January.
He should have seen it coming. Callum had mentioned, in the measured way he mentioned things that required measuring, that the pack's existence was not unknown to everyone in Sutter Falls. That the Backs had been kept as a barrier not just by the signs but by a more active attention, and that there were people who had, over the years, considered it their business to know what was in those woods.
The man who came into Fog & Ground on a Thursday afternoon in January and sat across from Mare without being invited was in his fifties, rangy, with the specific quiet of a man who has spent a great deal of time outdoors waiting for things. His name, he said, was Garth Ellery. He had lived in Sutter Falls his entire life.
"I know what you are," he said.
Mare wrapped his hands around his coffee. "And what's that?"
"Part of the Harrow. Newly turned." He studied Mare with pale eyes that did not have the wolf's light in them but had something else, something older and colder. "The bite was two months ago, roughly. October. You've been running with them since November."
"If all of that were true," Mare said carefully, "why would you tell me you know?"
"Because I want you to take a message to Callum Thayer." He set his hands flat on the table. "The pack's been in those woods for longer than my family's been in this town. I know that. And for most of that time we've had an agreement. The pack stays in the Backs. They don't come into town during the full moon. They don't involve civilians. And we don't push for anything more." He paused. "The agreement worked fine for forty years. Then two years ago, Callum bites a Korean kid from Portland who has no roots here and no claim on the land. And now he bites a sixteen-year-old who goes to the local high school and walks around where people can see her — him, whatever —"
"Him," Mare said. His voice was level.
"Him," Ellery repeated, without apparent difficulty. "Walking around where people can see. And the changes are visible. And people talk." He looked at his coffee. "I'm not here to threaten. I'm here to say that there are people in this town who won't see what I see, which is a complicated situation with history. They'll see a monster. And monsters get hunted."
"Are you threatening the pack?"
"I'm warning you." He stood, pulling on his jacket. "Tell Callum the agreement needs to be renegotiated. And tell him Ellery's granddaughter is asking questions." He paused at the table. "She's seventeen. She found the signs last summer and started looking into it. She's smart." Something moved briefly across his face that might have been pride. "She's going to find more than she's looking for if someone doesn't get ahead of it."
He left.
Mare sat with his cold coffee for ten minutes, then called Rook.
"Did you know about Ellery?" he said when Rook picked up.
A pause. "Callum knows him. Why?"
"He just sat down across from me at Fog & Ground and delivered a warning. And Rook — he has a granddaughter. Seventeen. She's investigating the Backs."
Another pause, longer. "How close is she?"
"He said she's smart. He said she'll find more than she's looking for."
"Come to the farmhouse tonight." Rook's voice had changed. Not alarmed — more focused, the way a fire focuses. "This is a conversation for the full pack."