We walk through the market in a loose group—no one holding hands, no one claiming territory. Just four people moving through a crowd, stopping when something catches our eye.
Damon pauses at a booth selling handmade candles and ends up buying three because the vendor reminds him of his aunt. Griffin drags me to a game where you throw darts at balloons and spends ten dollars failing to pop a single one. I win a small purple stuffed cat on my second try and give it to him, and he carries it around for the rest of the afternoon without a trace of embarrassment.
Silas is quieter. He hangs back sometimes, watching, his hands in his pockets. But when we pass a booth selling rune-inscribed pendants, he stops and studies them for a long time, pointing out the construction flaws to the vendor with a seriousness that makes the poor man nervous.
We eat fried dough on a bench near the fiddle player. I sit between Damon and Griffin, with Silas on the end, and I watch the crowd flow past—families with strollers, teenagers in groups, old couples walking slow. Normal people doing normal things.
“I want one of those apple things,” I say, pointing at a vendor across the way.
“I’ll get it,” Griffin says, already standing.
“I’ll come with.” Damon pushes off the bench. “You want anything, Silas?”
“Coffee, if they have it.”
They walk off together, and for the first time all day, it’s just me and Silas on the bench.
“You’re thinking loud,” he says.
“I’m not thinking anything.”
“Your face says otherwise.”
I watch Damon and Griffin at the apple vendor, their heads bent together over the menu. They’re talking about something—not arguing, just discussing. Easy. Like they’ve known each other for years instead of days.
“What if it doesn’t work?” I ask. “The bond thing. What if we can’t?”
Silas is quiet for a moment. “Then we find another way.”
“There isn’t another way. Bonds are how packs form. Without that?—”
“Caroline.” He turns to face me. “Packs are a social construct. Bonds are a biological one. They overlap, but they’re not the same thing. The bond makes it easier, sure. But people have been building lives together without bonds since long before the Council decided to regulate it.”
“That’s not how the world works.”
“It’s how this town works. Or it used to be, before the Council started treating every unbonded Omega like a problem to be solved.” He pauses. “I’ve spent my whole career enforcing rules I didn’t question. I’m done with that. If the bond won’t take, we figure out what comes next. Together.”
Before I can respond, Griffin returns with two caramel apples, and Damon follows with coffee for Silas and something pink and frozen for me.
“Don’t ask what’s in it,” Damon says, handing me the cup. “The vendor called it a cloud burst.”
“It tastes like strawberries and bleach,” I say after the first sip.
“Finish it anyway. You wanted the full experience.”
The afternoon stretches on. We walk the entire fairgrounds, from the craft stalls to the food trucks to the petting zoo where Griffin spends twenty minutes petting a goat that keeps trying to eat his shirt. The sun starts to drop toward the tree line, and the string lights come on, casting everything in warm gold.
We end up at the pie competition tent. The entries are displayed on long tables, each one labeled with the baker’s name and the pie variety. June’s booth is near the front—she’s not competing this year, but August entered a blackberry lattice that looks like it belongs in a magazine.
“Can we eat these?” Griffin asks.
“You have to buy a tasting ticket,” I say. “Three dollars for six samples.”
“I’ll buy ten tickets,” Damon says, already pulling out his wallet.
We stand around a high-top table with a stack of small paper plates and forks, tasting pies and arguing about which one is best. Damon prefers a traditional apple. Griffin is loyal to a cherry lattice from one of the Hartwell cousins. Silas surprises everyone by choosing a savory herb-and-goat-cheese pie.
“I didn’t know you liked goat cheese,” I say.
