I wrap my right hand around my left forearm, apply pressure, and I walk back to the dormitory.
The window with the broken latch is where I left it. I climb through, go up three flights, and in the bathroom I run cold water over the cut. Then I tear a strip from an old shirt and wrap it tight.
Back in my room I lie down with my hands flat at my sides and I stare at the ceiling.
I don't sleep.
I lie there and I think with as much clarity as I can manage. They're testing me because they can smell I'm different, because I don't fit their categories, because unknown wolves are threats until proven otherwise. This isn't personal. This is pack law.
They know things about my parents. They have access to records I don't have. They think I might be Silverpelt, which means they think I might be dormant Alpha bloodline, which means they see me as a potential threat to their hierarchy.
They're right that I'm hiding something. They're not right about what.
The cut on my arm is still bleeding slightly through the cloth. I press my palm against it and I wait for the familiar warmth of my body knitting itself together, the strange fast healing I've had since I was twelve.
It doesn't come.
I lie there for ten minutes. The cut keeps bleeding, the skin stays open. Something about this place, or the stress I'm under, or what they did to me tonight has disrupted whatever mechanism usually handles this. My body isn't healing as it should.
I press harder on the wound and I watch the ceiling get lighter as the sky shifts from black to dark grey. When the greyis full I get up, wash my face, change my shirt, and go down to breakfast with my arm wrapped in white cloth under my sleeve where no one can see it.
In the morning, nothing.
Not a word in the corridors, not a look across the dining hall, nothing in any class. The silence isn't absence, it's enforced pack protocol. The trial happened outside official channels. Therefore it didn't happen. Therefore my arm under my sleeve is nothing anyone can acknowledge.
But I can feel it in the building.
The extra space that opens around me in the main corridor, wolves instinctively giving a wide berth to someone under assessment. A table near the library emptying before I sit down, individuals developing pressing reasons to be elsewhere. In History the student who used to share notes with me finds a different seat, pack instinct overriding personal preference.
The girl who was friendly in the first week has developed perfectly delivered apologies. She has other obligations, she has a study group, she has a thing. Each time she means it, and each time pack hierarchy is working exactly as designed.
I eat alone at the back table, eating everything on my plate because not eating would signal weakness. I don't look at Caspian's table where he sits easy and central with Nico beside him. I don't look at the faculty table where Professor Harmon is a dark presence at the end. In every class I take my notes and I answer questions when called on, proving I'm still functional, still holding position.
I carry the isolation like an uncomfortable coat that doesn't fit well but is mine now regardless.
What I don't do is show submission. I don't eat less, don't walk faster past groups of students, don't let my eyes drop when Caspian and Nico pass me in the corridor. Pack hierarchy is established through body language and I'm not giving them submission signals.
I look straight ahead and I keep walking.
When Lily sits down across from me at breakfast without saying anything, just puts her tray down and starts eating, the simple uncalculated fact of her there is the first demonstration of pack loyalty I've received and I have to look at my food for a moment before I trust my face.
"The trials will continue," she says without looking up from her plate. "They won't consider passing you until they've determined exactly what you are."
"I know."
"You got out of the chapel. That's good. Shows resourcefulness." She spears something on her fork. "But they're going to escalate. They need to see how you handle real pressure."
"I'll handle it."
She looks at me finally. "I know you will. I just want you to know I'm here, in whatever ways I can be."
I nod once.
We finish breakfast without talking and we walk to first class together, and I carry the small unremarkable warmth of that through the entire morning.
Chapter Six
History of the Shifter World. For the early sessions I treated it like every other class: sit in the back, listen, take notes, answer when called on, stay invisible.
