"Say that again," Rae said. Her voice was calm. Too calm. The kind of calm that meant she was working very hard not to react.
"North shifted last night. He spoke." I kept my hands folded in my lap, kept my voice steady, even though my heart was pounding. "He told me his name, Cal, he remembers having a pack. Other ferals."
Rae was quiet for a long moment. Her tea sat untouched on the desk between us, steam curling toward the ceiling.
"And you believe him," she said finally.
"I saw them."
Her eyebrows rose. "Saw them how?"
"The same way I saw Cal." I met her eyes. "The same way I've been seeing Denali since I was eleven years old."
Rae knew about the visions — the dreams that had started when I was a child, pulling me toward a mountain I'd never seen, toward a wolf who needed to be found.
She'd believed me then. I needed her to believe me now.
"How many?" she asked.
"Four that escaped. Plus the alpha, if he survived. They were being chased by something — a bear, I think. The alpha stayed behind to fight it. Told the others to run."
Rae's expression didn't change, but I felt something shift in the room. The air getting heavier.
"Five ferals," she said slowly. "On a mountain that's already nearly killed you once."
"I know."
"A mountain you went to without authorization, without backup, without telling anyone where you were going—"
"And I found Cal." I leaned forward. "I was right, Rae. About the vision, about the wolf, about all of it. I'm right about this too."
"Being right doesn't mean being smart." Her voice was sharp now. "You got lucky last time. James shifted for the first time in the middle of a blizzard and somehow managed not to kill either of you. Cal was unconscious for transport, which was the only reason you made it back alive. None of that is a plan, Lumi. It's a miracle."
"Then help me make a real plan."
"I am." Rae set down her tea with careful precision. "A real plan involves going through proper channels. Building a case. Getting Council approval, trained rescue teams, proper equipment—"
"That will take months."
"Weeks, if I push."
"They don't have weeks." I stood, unable to sit still any longer. "Every day we wait, they're out there. Starving. Freezing. Losing more of themselves to the feral darkness. Cal barely held onto enough humanity to remember they exist. How much longer before they forget entirely?"
"And if you go now, unprepared, and get yourself killed? Who helps them then?"
The words landed hard. I didn't have an answer.
Rae sighed. Rubbed her eyes. For a moment, she looked older than I'd ever seen her — tired in a way that went bone-deep.
"I'm not saying no," she said quietly. "I'm saying not like this. Not again. Give me time. Let me work the system."
I thought about Cal's face when he'd told me about his pack. The grief. The guilt. The way his voice had cracked onI left them.
I thought about the vision — four wolves running through a blizzard, terrified and alone, disappearing into white.
I thought about the guilt that had been sitting in my chest since the moment Cal had spoken those words. James and I had dragged him off that mountain unconscious, strapped him to a sled, hauled him through miles of snow without ever stopping to ask if there was anyone else who needed saving.
We'd saved one. And abandoned five.
