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I close my hand over his, pressing the ring between our palms, over my heart. “Our engagement,” I repeat, and the words completely soften something in me.

Then the trees rustle, and Lucas goes still. I realize, a breath too late, that human families do not wait as patiently as ancient trees.

Jonah steps into the clearing first, as I knew he would. He is nearly twenty years old now, taller than when I first watched him shake beneath the weight of the forest’s wrong stories, stronger in ways that have nothing to do with muscle. He grins so hard his whole face looks split, eyes wet and bright in the moonlight.

Behind him comes Mel, one hand pressed over her mouth, the other gripping Aaron’s sleeve hard enough that he looks both emotional and mildly worried for the fabric. Lucas’s mother steps into the clearing last, quiet and tearful, with that fierce look she gets when love has made her proud and furious at the same time.

Lucas turns toward them slowly. His face goes through many expressions. Shock. Horror. Realization. Betrayal. More shock. Then a bright, mortified flush that spreads all the way up to his ears.

Jonah throws both arms up. “He said yes!”

“Oh my God,” Lucas says, staring at me. “You invited my family?”

I straighten slightly. “A proposal is human ritual. Human pack should witness.”

“My human pack has been hiding in the trees?”

Mel laughs through tears. “Only for ten minutes.”

“Twenty-three,” Jonah says proudly.

Lucas points at him with his ringed hand, then seems to remember the ring is there and immediately starts crying again, which makes his pointing less threatening. “You knew?”

Jonah’s grin turns impossibly smug. “I helped with the distraction text about the raccoons earlier.”

Lucas looks toward his mother as though she may be the reasonable one, which is brave and foolish because she is the one who taught his stubbornness to walk upright. She comes forward with tears on her cheeks and takes his face in both hands, touching him the way she did after Sweet Rivers gave him back to her, changed but living.

“Don’t you fuss at that boy,” she says. “He asked permission.”

Lucas blinks. “He what?”

I lower my head slightly, though I do not know why embarrassment comes now when I have already knelt before him with my heart open in both hands. “I asked your mother. Then Mel. Then Jonah. Then Aaron because he was in the room and looked frightened to be excluded.”

Aaron nods solemnly. “I appreciated the inclusion.”

Lucas’s mouth opens, but nothing comes out. This is rare and wonderful.

Mel reaches us and pulls Lucas into a hug so tight he wheezes. She is crying fully now, speaking into his hair while he clings to her with one arm and keeps his ringed hand lifted, as if he’s afraid it might disappear if he presses it between them.

“I’m so happy for you,” she says, voice breaking. “You impossible, terrifyingly stubborn idiot. I’m so happy.”

“I’m the idiot?” Lucas mutters, but his voice breaks too, and he holds her harder.

Jonah comes to me while Lucas is trapped between Mel and his mother. He looks up at me with damp eyes and a grin he is trying to make casual. He fails.

“You did good,” he says.

The words strike strangely. Humans say small things that carry large roots.

“I did?” I ask.

Jonah nods. “Yeah. The ring’s sick, by the way. Like, emotionally devastating, but also sick.”

“I accept both meanings.”

He laughs and throws his arms around me.

For one moment, I stand frozen because Jonah hugs like Lucas, sudden and sincere and trusting enough to hurt. Then I bend around him carefully and place one hand against his back.