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Birdie drops the spoon and bends after it. I catch her around the middle with my left palm while Mel picks it up. She’d have gone after it headfirst. Mel keeps it this time, rubbing the end clean on a cloth.

Kestria watches her do it. “I asked him to bring me to you, Mel. I thought you’d fix it. I’ve come home to you looking worse.”

I kept her from that. Hitto.

Mel sits down across from us, next to Keer, still holding the spoon. “What was on the bolt?”

“Moonbright,” I tell her. “And something else with it. I couldn’t figure it out. The head’s in the sack. It hasn’t been cleaned.”

Kestria’s fingers tighten on my leg.

Mel looks at the sack, then back at me. “Thank you. You knew what it did, though?”

“I’d heard hunters talking, weeks before. ‘Wolves die as men now.’ Those were his words.”

Mel’s hands go still around the spoon. “You heard him say that?”

“Yes.”

Keer looks past us toward the trees. Eskan pulls at his arm until he looks down again.

“My wolf’s dead, Mel.” Kestria’s hand stays on my leg. “She’s not coming back. I can’t feel any of you. I still try.”

I can’t give her that back.

Mel comes around the table and takes Kestria’s free hand in both of hers.

They stay that way until the meat spits behind us.

Mel turns at the sound, then goes to move the pan farther from the flames. “It wasn’t the same as the old poison?”

Kestria watches her go. “No. I kept waiting for it to be.”

Mel nods, looking at the pan. Then she picks up the board and starts cutting again.

Keer shifts Colm onto his lap and looks at Kestria. “It was the next night. When we lost you.”

Kestria looks up. “The new moon.”

Keer nods. “I was already on four legs. We’d been along the bank again. I could still feel you, even after you’d stopped sending. Faint. Then you were gone.”

That’s the night I found her.

His hand cups the back of Colm’s head. “I tried to change back. Couldn’t. I kept trying anyway.”

Kestria’s fingers dig into my leg. “Keer.”

He looks at her across the table. “I couldn’t call your name.”

She lifts her hand from my leg and reaches across. He takes it, keeping Colm against him with the other arm. Eskan leans in to look at their hands.

Kestria doesn’t let go. “I don’t remember it. I was in the water.”

Keer holds on until the reach starts pulling at her shoulder, then gives her hand back. “We searched after that too.”

“I know you did.” Her hand comes back to her lap.

Keer’s jaw sets again. “We thought we’d find your body.”