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Begin, then.

“Kaleva, alpha.”

The name comes out too low, so I draw more air for the next one, enough that she can hear it from the wall.

I leave Väinö’s pause after each one. At the end of the first den, I take a stone from the dish and set it on the floor to my left. Its edge touches the wall, and the next one goes beside it.

Kestria’s breathing is close behind my shoulder, and I can hear it between the names. I don’t mind it.

“Väinö, heir-tutor.”

I say the title the way he said it. He’d have corrected the breath I took in the middle.

I was always trying to finish that lesson early. There were people outside, and I could hear them while I sat with him. Sometimes Jouni would scratch at the wall behind my seat until I turned around.

I speak the next name and keep going.

The row beside my knee gets longer. I set each stone down quietly and start the next den. Some of these people came to our den only once in my childhood. I remember who sat by our fire and who stayed standing while my father spoke to them.

Where I know how one of them died, that goes in too. Most of them I don’t.

My throat starts catching halfway through the older families. I reach for the cup, find its rim with a blunt finger, and drink around my fangs. The water’s still cool.

Kestria shifts against the wall while I swallow. Her belt knocks the stone once, then she’s quiet again.

I set the cup back and pick up where I stopped.

When I reach my mother’s name, my hand’s still on the cup.

“Tuuli.”

I can remember saying it while she was alive. She’d turn to see why I wasn’t calling her Mother.

My thumb rubs the wet rim, and I take my hand away.

“Ilmari, alpha.”

I leave the pause and speak the name after his.

The names get younger, and I know more of them. I ate beside these people. I knew whose place I could take by the fire and who’d make me move.

“Jouni.”

The fox he made is out there beside her fish. She stood it up on her palm and ran her thumb down its back.

Oh, I’d have liked him.

My breath comes out through my nose. I know what he’d have done with that potato tonight. He’d have made her laugh while I was still cutting it.

I swallow and say the next name.

Kestria stays by the wall, and once I hear her pull her sleeve across the rock. I turn an ear toward her, but she doesn’t speak.

The children come last. Some of them never learned their own names, and I still give the whole thing. My knees hurt enough that I lean forward onto my good hand. Not now. I keep speaking while I shift the weight.

“Lumi.”

I take the last stone from the dish and place it beside the others. Then I draw the breath for my own name.