She looked up.
"Whatever this becomes—the academy, the expanded program, all of it—it's going to change things. For everyone." I met her eyes. "Make sure you're ready for that."
"I'm not sure anyone can be ready for what's coming." She smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "But we'll face it anyway. That's what we do."
I left her office and walked through the quiet hallways of the administration building. Outside, the campus was peaceful—students crossing the quad, staff going about their business, the ordinary rhythm of Academy life continuing as if everything was normal.
It wasn't.
The world was shifting. Slowly, invisibly, but definitely shifting. The feral academy was just the beginning. If Rae and the council moved forward with the expanded vision, it would be something else entirely.
A place for the broken. A place for the dangerous.
A place for wolves who didn't fit anywhere else.
And at the center of it—whether anyone planned it that way or not—would be Stone. The proof that understanding could reach places training couldn't. The bridge between worlds that most people would never want to cross.
I'd thought the academy was a clean solution. A purpose-built facility for a specific population.
I was wrong.
It was a necessary risk.
And none of us were ready for what that would mean.
Chapter twenty-four
The common room was quiet in the afternoon light.
Gray sat beside me on the worn couch, working through a puzzle book Neal had given him. His brow furrowed with concentration, lips moving silently as he worked out each answer. He'd come so far from the wolf who couldn't make eye contact, who sat in corners and flinched at shadows.
"This one's wrong," he said, pointing at a clue.
"What do you mean?"
"The answer they want is 'dawn.' But 'dusk' also fits." He looked up at me, something almost mischievous in his eyes. "Sloppy editing."
I laughed. "You're getting too smart for these puzzles."
"Maybe." He returned to the book, but he was smiling.
Movement at the edge of my vision.
I turned.
RJ stood in the doorway to his room.
He looked different than he had during the incident three weeks ago. Still thin, still wary, but something had shifted. The constant coiled tension had eased slightly. His eyes tracked the room—exits, threats, possibilities—but they lingered on me longer than they used to.
He didn't speak.
He just walked across the common room and sat down.
Not on a chair. Not at a safe distance.
On the floor. Near my feet. Close enough that his shoulder almost brushed my knee.
Gray went still beside me. The puzzle book forgotten.
