Vince—Professor Tomlinson, I corrected myself—was a contrast to Boone's energy. Calm, measured, with the kind of quiet intensity that made you lean forward to catch his words. He wrote on the board:MYTHS AS SOCIAL TECHNOLOGY.
"Mythology," he said, "is not a collection of old stories. It is a survival mechanism. Stories teach us who we are, what dangers exist, how to navigate the social world." He paused, and I could swear his eyes flickered toward me again. "Tonight, I want you to think about a myth from your home region. Your culture. Yourfamily. We'll share them next week—not as entertainment, but as technology. What does the storydo? What behavior does it encourage or forbid? What identity does it reinforce?"
My thoughts went immediately to Darian—Gregor's old friend, now Cora’s mate, who'd visited often and told stories by the fire late into the night. One story in particular.
There was a woman who walked between worlds. Not wolf, not human, not pack or village but both and neither. She could find the ferals—the ones lost to the wild—and she didn't run from them. She accepted them.
I remembered asking what happened to her. Darian had smiled, firelight flickering across his lined face.
Depends on who's telling. Some say the packs hunted her—couldn't abide something that didn't fit their categories. Some say she died saving a feral who couldn't be saved. Some say she survived. Had children. That her bloodline might still exist, somewhere.
I'd asked if it was true. He'd said,All myths are true. That's what makes them interesting.
Tomlinson dismissed us, and I took my time gathering my things, letting the other students file out first. He was erasing the board when I passed his desk, and without looking up, he said quietly, "Rae says you're settling in."
"Trying to."
"Thursday office hours. If you need anything." Still not looking. Still maintaining the fiction.
"Thanks, Professor."
I slipped out before anyone noticed the exchange, turning the memory of Darian's story over in my mind. A woman who found ferals and accepted them. A lineage that might still exist.
After dinner, I changed into running gear and headed for the trail behind the dormitories. The evening had gone fully dark, the path ahead broken into pools of light by the sidewalk lamps, my breath fogging with each exhale.
I ran until my legs burned, then ran some more. Stairs next. By the time I finished, I was sweating and shaking and blissfully empty of thought.
The library was quiet when I arrived, smelling of old paper and wood polish. I found a study carrel in a back corner and spread out my research: topographical maps of Denali, weather pattern analyses, accounts from climbers who'd attempted the West Buttress route. I cross-referenced avalanche data with my vision—the ridge where I'd seen the wolf, the approximate location based on terrain features.
The timeline was tight. Summit season was short, conditions unpredictable. I had maybe a couple of weeks to be ready.
My phone buzzed. A text from Silas:
Library basement, reference stacks 7pm.
Our first weekly check-in. Rae had arranged it before I'd even finished unpacking—her mate helping her little sister navigate the thing they shared. Visions. The curse of seeing too much and understanding too little.
I stacked my maps and research into a careful pile, then hesitated. Silas was a seer. If anyone could read between the lines of what I was studying, it was him. I slid the Denali materials into my bag instead of leaving them on the table, buried under a textbook.
The basement was dimmer, quieter, filled with periodicals and archives that most students probably forgot existed. Silas was waiting near a table in the corner, surrounded by books that looked older than the building.
He looked up when I approached—pale gray eyes that had always unsettled me, even at Rae's dinner table. Easier to handlewhen Alexandra was climbing on him and he was pretending to be a horse.
"You're training hard," he said without preamble.
I sat across from him, keeping my bag close.
I shrugged, aiming for casual. "First week of classes. Just working off stress."
His gaze lingered a moment too long, and I wondered how much seers could actually sense from each other. Whether my visions left some kind of residue he could read.
"Have you seen anything lately?" he asked.
"Fragments," I said. Not a lie. "Nothing clear."
Silas studied me, and I held his gaze without flinching. I'd learned a long time ago that looking away was as good as a confession.
"Visions come as they want to," he said finally. He slid a book toward me—leather-bound, handwritten. "Sometimes they clarify. Sometimes slowly, sometimes all at once. When yours does, I hope you will tell me."
