“I can't decide whether I want to shake her or hold her,” I said.

Silas tucked my hair behind my ear. “You don't have to decide tonight.”

I stayed against him until I could breathe without catching. When I sat back, I had left a damp patch on his shirt and a crease across his collar.

“You're going to run out of dry clothes.”

“The laundry room and I are already acquainted.”

I managed a smile. He kissed the corner of it, then my forehead, taking his time as though neither the paperwork nor the hour had any claim on him.

The back door opened while I was reaching for a tissue. Ronan stepped in carrying the patrol radio Silas had left charging, rain glittering on his shoulders.

“East boundary checked. I put two men on the road by—”

He saw my face and stopped.

“Bad time. I'll leave this here.”

He set the radio beside the map. His gaze passed over the crescent on the birth slip, moved away, then returned. The leather beneath his hand creaked.

Silas noticed too. “Ronan?”

“Where did that come from?”

I wiped my cheek. “My mother.”

Ronan kept looking at the three strokes inside the moon. He seemed to have forgotten his wet jacket, the radio, all of us.

“You recognize it,” I said.

“It's an old pack crest.”

“Moonridge?”

He nodded. His answer came after a pause long enough for Silas to shift beside me.

“Have you been there?” I asked.

Ronan pulled his hand off the table. “A long time ago.”

“Then you might have known her.” I pushed the photograph toward him. “Please look.”

He did. I watched his face for something I could use, some small recognition that would give me a person to ask about the mother in the letter.

“I can't tell you that I knew her,” he said at last.

Disappointment hurt more than I expected. “But you know the place.”

“I know what happened to people who came from it.”

Silas stood. Ronan finally looked at him, and whatever passed between them made his shoulders draw tight.

“Anything that affects their safety,” Silas said, “you bring to me.”

“I will.”

“Tonight, if it can't wait.”

Ronan nodded again. He left without taking the coffee he usually stole on his way through the kitchen. Through the window, I saw him stop under the porch roof and brace both hands on the railing.

“He's holding something back,” I said.

“I'll talk to him.” Silas sat again. “You don't have to finish this tonight.”

I pulled the last sheet closer. “I do.”

The map showed a narrow lake and a house tucked beneath its eastern bank. My mother had marked an upper service path, a stone lintel, and a place she called the winter den. Beside the drawing was a warning about high water.

“I remember the way in. I do not know what remains. Do not go alone, and do not take a child below the bank.”

I turned back to the letter. Her handwriting grew smaller toward the bottom, as though she had started running out of courage as well as room.

“They called it a relocation. We packed blankets for the pups because they said the roads would be cold. Some families waited in wolf form so they could carry their young farther. The gate guards told them to shift back before boarding.”

My stomach tightened. Beside me, Silas had gone completely still.

“When the shouting began, I took you through the kitchen. I heard the first shots before I reached the orchard. I wanted to turn back for the others. You started crying, and I kept running.”

There was another crossed-out line. This time I couldn't read what lay underneath it.

“I have lived long enough to know that keeping you alive did not excuse every silence afterward. I was afraid you would look for them. I was afraid they would find you first.”

I lifted the page toward the light. One name stood alone in the margin, added in darker ink.

Sabine Rusk.

Below it, my mother had written one final sentence.

“I saw her at the gate, Evelyn. She was the one who ordered it closed.”