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Then another.

Soon I was close enough to smell rain in his fur, pine beneath it, and the fresh metallic scent of blood.

This was the same bear who had carried me out of the ravine by the hood of my coat and set me down beside the tower with extraordinary care. The same bear I had managed to calm once before while I sat in the dark with my ankle twisted beneath me.

I held on to that memory.

Then I raised my eyes to his and began to hum.

It was the same low, tuneless sound I had once made for Bruno, and the same one I had used in the ravine with tears still wet on my face.

I kept humming as I slowly lifted one hand.

Silas didn’t move.

I placed my palm against his chest.

His heart was hammering beneath my hand.

His entire body shuddered at the contact, but I didn’t pull away. I stayed where I was and kept breathing slowly while the frantic beat of his heart pressed against my palm.

Come back. I fixed the thought in my mind and held on to it. Come back. I’ve got you. You can come back now.

Something changed beneath my hand.

At first it was so slight that I wasn’t sure I had felt it. Then the tension in his body began to ease. His breathing changed. The rigid set of his shoulders softened by a fraction.

The red slowly disappeared from his eyes until they were brown again, dark and confused.

The fur receded.

His claws shortened and vanished.

The shape of his face changed with them until Silas stood in front of me again, gray with exhaustion, drenched in sweat, and trembling so badly I could feel it through my hand.

Then his knees touched the sand.

Even then, he didn’t collapse.

He lowered himself carefully, almost deliberately, until he was kneeling in front of me. Then he leaned forward and rested his forehead against my stomach.

His hands remained loose at his sides.

He didn’t touch me with them.

I understood immediately that he was afraid to.

His whole body shook in heavy, uneven bursts, and his breathing came rough against the front of my sweater.

I placed my hand on the back of his head, against his short hair, and left it there.

Only then did I realize how quiet the Pit had become.

I looked up and found every tier crowded with faces. Students had stopped halfway up the rope ladders, frozen where they were, all of them staring down at us.

Kaelen stood a few yards away in the sand. His hands were human again, and his eyes had faded back to gray, but there was something in his expression I couldn’t make sense of.

Jax was still halfway down the ladder. All the color had gone from his face.