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His wolf needed to be significantly less helpful.

Drayce, in the back seat, had brought a data folder. He’d been holding it since they left but hadn’t opened it once. Mirelle’s eyes were on the passenger window. “You’re quiet.”

“I’m driving.”

“You’ve been quiet since you picked me up.”

“I’m thinking.”

“About?”

Someone had been deliberately targeting her for longer than she knew. She’d said Okay without flinching. Something in him, which had been pacing a rut for three years, fell quiet. None of that belonged in his answer. “The training sequence.” He kept his eyes on the road. No sound came from the back seat. Drayce managed his expression carefully, and Tor could feel it.

The forest rose on their left, coastal pine and scrub oak beginning where the northern residential quarter thinned out. Tor took the unpaved track without slowing. He had driven it enough times that his hands found the turns without direction.

“How many people have you trained?” Mirelle asked.

“Seven awakening events in the past decade.”

“How many of them produced four summonings at once on the first event?”

“None.”

“So, I’m a first.”

“You’re notable.”

“Notable,” she repeated, like she was testing whether the word covered the situation. “Is that a security term for alarming?”

“No.”

“Is that a security term for you’re not going to tell me yet?” He glanced at her. She was already studying him, waiting. “Yes.”

She turned back to the window. “At least you’re honest about it.” Behind them, Drayce made the smallest possible approving noise.

Tor decided to have Drayce review the data folder the moment they reached the clearing, if only to keep him occupied.

The training clearing was half a mile in. Old ward-symbol work on the ring of oaks, weather-worn but holding. Packed earth at the center, pine needles at the edges, scorch marks in the bark from earlier sessions. It smelled like salt air and damp moss, and, faintly, the warm amber honey that summoned creatures left behind. Mirelle stepped in, took it all in, and said, “This is either for magical training or an extremely committed outdoor yoga situation.”

“Training.”

“The scorch marks really sell it.”

“Those are from an earlier practitioner. Containment failure. 2019.”

“How contained was the failure?”

“The oak is still alive. That’s a pass.”

She studied the scorched oak with an expression that suggested she had slightly revised her confidence. He didn’t tell her the 2019 incident involved a single second-year practitioner, a small surge, and a poorly positioned candle. The oak had been more startled than harmed. Drayce stationed himself at the tree line, the data folder under his arm. He opened it, then closed it. Mirelle picked a spot in the clearing and took off her cardigan. She was warmer than expected. Her magic was already awake and alert.

Tor turned his back to them both.

He was fine. Fine. He’d managed far more complicated situations than one woman in a forest clearing, and he kept his eyes firmly on the readings.

“Summoning magic runs on pressure,” he said, stopping in the center of the clearing to face her. “Hold an emotion down long enough, and it builds until the magic finds its own way out.”

“Which in my case was a raccoon.”