"You say that, but you don't tell it like it's just a story." He was watching my face, and I deliberately didn't meet his eyes. "You tell it like it matters."
Because it does. Because I'm about to climb a mountain to save a feral wolf and I don't even know why except that I can't not do it.
"Darian was a good storyteller," I said. "I'm just repeating what he taught me."
"Is he still around? Darian?"
"He travels a lot." I kept my voice casual. "With his wife. I don't see him much anymore."
All true. Nothing that invited follow-up questions about pack gatherings or how a ten-year-old orphan came to know an elder storyteller in the first place.
James nodded slowly, like he was filing the information away. "He taught you well."
"He'd probably say I left out the best parts."
We walked in silence for a moment. The quad was crowded with students moving between classes, and I used the chaos as an excuse to focus on navigation instead of conversation.
"The woman in your story," James said eventually. "The one who found ferals. Do you think she was real?"
All myths are true. That's what makes them dangerous.
"I think," I said carefully, "that stories don't have to be literally true to matter. They teach us something about who we are. What we value. What we're afraid of."
"What does that story teach you?"
I stopped walking. We were at the edge of the quad, near the path that led to the dining hall. Students flowed around us, oblivious.
"Why do you care?"
He blinked, surprised by the sharpness of the question. "Because you're interesting. And because you looked—" He hesitated, searching for the word. "Scared. When you were telling it. Not scared of the story. Scared of something else."
The hum flared, warm and insistent. I wanted to lean toward it. I wanted to run.
"I'm not scared," I said.
"Okay."
"I'm not."
He didn't believe me. I could see it in the gentle stubbornness of his expression, the way he was looking at me like I was a puzzle he intended to solve whether I wanted him to or not.
"I have to go," I said.
"Lumi—"
But I was already walking, putting distance between us, trying to outpace the hum and the memory and the terrible weight of a story I should never have told.
I skipped dinner. Couldn't face the dining hall, couldn't face Ivy's questions or James's patient attention. Instead, I found an empty bench behind the science building and sat with my back against the cold stone wall, trying to breathe.
The woman who walked between worlds.
I'd never told that story to anyone before. Not since hearing Darian tell it around the fire. It had felt too personal, too raw, like exposing a wound that hadn't finished healing.
And now I'd said it in front of strangers. In front of James, who looked at me like he was memorizing every word. In front of Vince, who knew exactly how personal it was.
Why had I done that? I could have made something up. Shared a generic Finnish myth from one of Gregor's books. Something safe, forgettable, unremarkable.
But Vince had asked for something real. Something from my home, my culture, my family. And Darian's story was all three.
