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“It’s not just about wetland runoff,” Aunt Karen added. “The human commercial development on the west side is squeezing the Fletchers out of their foraging grounds. It’s pushing the bear shifters right up against our northern boundary. That’s why the Fletcher boys have been roaming so close to our property lines lately.”

Aunt Karen was wrong so often that I hesitated to agree with her. She objected to new library hours, outdoor concerts, people wearing hats indoors, and most foods created after 1985.

As the sister of the alpha, Aunt Karen always tried to assert power wherever she could, even if she wasn’t in the right.

Unfortunately, she had a point now.

“Send me the article,” I said.

“I already did.”

I checked my notifications. She’d sent it seven times. “Ah. I see that.”

“You need to speak to your mother.”

“I will.”

“And the council liaison.”

“I’ll contact her,” I said.

“And the planning board.”

“That will have to come from residents inside the affected district.”

“We are affected.”

“Legally affected.”

Karen made an impatient sound. “This is the problem with younger leadership. Everything has to be phrased correctly before anyone will act.”

“I’m not leading yet.”

“You will be soon.”

“Mom isn’t retiring tomorrow,” I pointed out.

I was determined to do it right when my time came. Leadership wasn’t a title you used to puff up your ego and dump the hard parts onto everyone else when things got uncomfortable. Real leadership meant staying when things got tough. It meant being the anchor when the tide tried to pull everyone under.

“She won’t retire at all if everyone allows her to keep running around solving every problem on her own.”

The criticism was uncomfortably close to something I already worried about, though I refused to tell Karen about that. “I said I’ll look into it.”

She huffed. “You always say that.”

“And then I do.”

She paused. It was hard to argue with my follow-through. Karen found a way anyway. “You don’t always do it fast enough.”

“I’m still standing under the tree I just got Levi out of.”

“What was he doing in a tree?”

“Being an eleven-year-old boy.”

“Well, children used to have better judgment.”

“Grandpa Alfonse was arrested when he was twelve because he stole the mayor’s goat,” I said.