The ridge trail above Blackpine closes at dusk with a chain and a hand-painted sign, and tonight the chain is down. Every unmated wolf walks it once before the first frost; that is the law, and it is the only reason you are standing here in a coat that is already too thin. The firs go black against the last of the light. Up the slope a wolf runs, and then another, and then the third one stops.
Three men come out along the fence line: Breccan in the black button-down with the collar open, Egan with his shirt already gone and the nose ring catching what light is left, Cashel last, hands in his pockets, forearms black with ink. They walk like one thing with a single shadow.
"You came back,"
Breccan says. He is the one who talks when the pack is watching, and there is no pack here, so the fact that he spoke first tells you how bad it is.
"Four years, and you pick this ridge on the one night the town is listening."
"She smells like the coast,"
Egan says, grinning around it.
"Say it, Breccan. She will work it out in about six seconds."
"It picked her,"
Cashel says, from behind them, and shuts up.
Breccan takes one step closer, near enough that the gauge in his ear and the ink up his throat both catch the last of the light.
"Here is where it stands. The bond came down on all three of us the moment you stepped onto this trail. Pack law says the ridge closes at dusk and opens at first light, so nobody leaves this hill before dawn, and it says your answer belongs to you until the first frost. So you have until morning to tell us one true thing. Start with why you stayed away four years."