Lily stood under the manor's tall windows and counted the people who had already turned away from her. Four, in under an hour. Amity had told her to use the night well. Five bloodlines under one roof, a peace no one had managed before, and a beta who wanted, somewhere under the title and the white hair and the cold face, to find a mate and a life that felt like her own. Amity had picked her knowing every fault. Lily was beginning to think the faults would pick the night. A man from the river clans approached first. He had kind eyes and a clean smile. He asked her name, and she gave it without warmth. He asked what she thought of the gathering, and she said it was loud. He waited. She did not fill the wait. He nodded once and went to find someone easier. She moved outside, hoping the grounds would thin the pressure. A stone bench sat near a statue of a goddess, her carved hands open at her sides. Lily sat. Two women from the mountain line drifted over, drawn by the quiet. One complimented her hair. Lily said thank you in a voice that closed the door. They lingered a polite moment, then drifted on. She watched them go and felt the old answer rise in her chest: it was easier when no one stayed. She tried once more, because Amity had asked. The rose garden held a small iron bench, and a man stood near it alone, half angel by the look of him. Her pulse moved. She walked over. He turned, and she saw him decide something in the half second before she spoke. He had heard who she was. He gave her a short bow, the kind betas got, and excused himself before she found a sentence. The roses kept their color. She did not. By the far edge of the lawn she found a wooden bench gone soft with moss, the slats split, the legs furred green. People had sat here once. No one sat here now. She understood the bench. She sat on it long enough to know the night was over for her, then stood and walked past the lit windows toward the tree line, where a small cedar cabin showed a thin line of smoke at its chimney. She let herself in. The fire was low. No one followed. She sat on the floor by the hearth and pressed her palms flat to the boards. The gathering went on without her, exactly as it had begun. She had come to find a mate. She had left the room alone. Tomorrow Amity would ask how it went, and Lily would have to decide whether the thing that pushed people away was something she could put down, or something she was.

Lily woke on the cabin floor with the fire down to coals. The night had not ended the way Amity wanted, but it had ended. She pulled the door open and stepped out into wet grass. The gathering was quiet now. She did not want to walk back past the lit windows, so she took the long way through the trees, where the ground sloped down toward a clearing she had not seen before. A huge tree stood at the center of it. Its trunk twisted up in knots, and its roots spread out across the dirt in long, bright lines that glowed faint colors under the leaves. She stopped at the edge of the clearing. She had meant to keep walking. Her feet did not move. Something under her collarbone began to warm, slow and steady, like a hand pressed there from the inside. She looked down. A thin chain had appeared at her throat. A small charm hung from it, round and pale, pulsing in time with the warmth. She touched it. It was real. The pulse matched something she could not name, and then matched two things, one quick and one slower, both of them moving toward her through the trees. She heard the wreck before she saw them. Past the roots, the remains of an old cart lay on its side, one wheel snapped, sacks split open in the dirt. Two men stepped around it. The taller one had dark horns and a long coat. The shorter one had brown hair and his hands in his pockets, like he had been out for a walk and stumbled into the wrong story. They both stopped when they saw her. The charm at her throat flared brighter. "Found you," the shorter one said. He looked at the pendant, then at her face. "That's new." The taller one did not move closer. His red eyes went from the charm to the tree to her. "We followed a scent," he said. "It led here." He paused. "You feel it too." Lily's first instinct was to turn cold and send them off the way she had sent off four others the night before. She opened her mouth. The charm pulsed against her skin, warm and certain, and the word she meant to use did not come. She felt the bond settle into place between the three of them like a line drawn through her chest. She could not unfeel it. She could not pretend she had not. "I'm Dan," the shorter one said. He gave her a small, easy smile. "He's Darius. We can leave if you want. We won't." Lily looked at them and did not look away. The night before, she had decided the thing that pushed people away might be what she was. The pendant said otherwise. So did her own quiet. She stayed where she stood, under the lit roots, and let them see her face.