The walk back to camp was heavier than the march out.

  Not with exhaustion—though that was there—but with the weight that followed after something essential had been exposed and left unresolved. Lysara let the silence stand. She walked a few paces ahead, not leading, not withdrawing. Close enough that words could reach her. Far enough that none did.

  Kayden and Tessa fell back.

  She could feel the shape of their conversation without hearing it. The false starts. The pauses that came too late. The moments where one of them might have spoken—and chose not to. She didn’t turn. This wasn’t something she could hold together for them.

  The camp lights bled through the trees, low and steady. Ward-lines hummed beneath the ground, familiar now. People moved with the careful efficiency of a camp that hadn’t yet decided whether the forest would stay quiet through the night.

  At the edge of the tents, Lysara veered away.

  She didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look back. She headed straight for her own space, breath still shallow, hands tight at her sides.

  Kayden and Tessa continued on toward the command tent.

  They didn’t speak at first. Then their heads inclined closer, steps falling into the same rhythm without comment.

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  Three paths diverging.

  None of them light.

  ***

  Lysara stayed huddled through the night, listening for footsteps. For the shift in sound that would mean people were moving with purpose, not passing by.

  Every outcome replayed itself in pieces.

  Drugged. Restrained.

  A cage like the scarecrow’s.

  They wouldn’t kill her—not yet. She had never harmed anyone. That still mattered. She thought it should.

  Should she leave?

  Slip back into the forest before morning decided for her?

  Valos’s name surfaced, unbidden.

  Would they question him?

  Could they?

  Did they have the right?

  What would the corpse of the wolf show?

  ***

  The next morning as soon as the sun came up, she gave up and stepped out of her tent. No guards were visible yet.

  “We gave command a report. Not all of it.” Kayden’s voice came from the shadow behind her tent.

  “What’s your plan?”

  She didn’t turn or answer right away. Her eyes stayed on the ground ahead, tracking roots, stones, the way the earth dipped where too many boots had passed.

  “As soon as we are freed to leave, I’m returning to go back to Black Hollow for the break.”

  A beat.

  “To speak with my mentor,” she added. “Valos. He’s the one who took my mother and me in. Taught me everything I knew about alchemy before the Academy.”

  They took a few more steps.

  “I need to know what he thinks about the new… developments,” she said. “About what I’ve learned since coming here.”

  Kayden nodded once, slow.

  “That’s not something you can do from here.”

  His brows drew together — the look he got when he was already deciding, not asking.

  “I’ll come with you.”

  She shook her head slightly. “I can go alone.”

  “I’m not asking for permission, I need to.”

  He stopped. She stopped with him.