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    The night after their decision stretched long and thin, a thread pulled tight between hope and fear.

    Sleep came in tatters. I drifted and rose, drifted and rose again, catching the flicker of torchlight under the door and the steady cadence of boots as our sentries changed posts.

    Somewhere down the hall a child cried out from a dream and was soothed; somewhere in the courtyard a hammer rang once, twice–someone securing atch that never quite fit. The manor breathed around us, the way a body breathes when it knows it must be strong by morning.

    By the time I gave up on sleep entirely, the window was no longer ck but gray–the antechamber of dawn. Francesco was already awake, sitting at the foot of the bed, elbows braced on his knees, hands steepled. The ck in his eyes was banked heat, quiet but unignorable. Our bond moved between us like a river under ice.

    “You felt it too,” I murmured, drawing the shawl around my shoulders.

    He nodded once. “Choices travel the halls. They keep their own hours.”

    I crossed to him and folded myself into hisp, a habit old as our first winter together.

    His arms came around me automatically, breath loosening. For a minute we said nothing, letting stillness do its work.

    Then, because dawn is impatient, a knock came–soft, respectful, decisive.

    “Enter,” Francesco called.

    Alfonso slipped in, already dressed for travel though he wasn’t leaving with them. He carried the practical scent of ink and leather and the faint bitter ghost of coffee. Behind him, in the corridor, the manor’s quiet bustle had gathered itself: the scrape of a trunk, the whisper of oiled hinges, the metallic peal of a curb chain tested for weaknessb. /b

    “It’s time,” Alfonso said.

    We dressed in silence that wasn’t empty.

    I braided my hair back; Francesco fastened the leather guards that he never went without now, not even for short walks through our own yard.

    In the corridor, Monica waited with a wicker case that clinked softly, and Audrey with a bundle strapped tight in oilcloth.

    “Don’t argue,” Monica said as a greeting, pressing the case into my hands for a moment so she could straighten the strap. “I know what you’re about to say and the answer is that they’re taking everything I give them.”

    “Everything?b” /bI echoed.

    “Salves. Dried meat. Tinctures. Charms.” Monica’s eyes flicked to me and the iron softened beneath their brown. “A little luck, bottled where it can find them when they forget they have it.”

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    65 vouchere

    Audrey’s grin was all tooth. “And this,” she said, pping the oilcloth. “Maps, two spare bdes/b, flint, and ba /bcoil of line that won’t betray them in the rain. And bells for your boots.”

    I blinked.

    “Kidding,” she added, deadpan. “Mostly.”

    Sofia and Lucien stood at the end of the hall by the great stair, hands twined so tightly their knuckles ached white.

    She wore a dark traveling cloak one of the women had altered through the night; he wore a coat that once belonged to an officer in a human army–anonymous, well–cut, forgettable. He had tucked his hair back. He had tucked everything sharp back except his eyes.

    Sofia’s gaze found me and flinched with memory and relief all at once. I crossed the space between us and took her free hand in both of mine.

    “You don’t have to say anything,” I told her.

    She said it anyway. “Thank you.”

    Lucien dipped his head toward Francesco. Not quite a bow; something more honest. “I won’t forget who did what my own would not, King Francesco.”

    Francesco’s mouth crooked at the corner. “Keep her safe,” he said, and the word her carried the bone–deep, vow–cold weight only a mated wolf can recognize. “Or Ie to Romania and ruin someone’s day.”

    “Several someones,” Audrey supplied helpfully.

    Monica elbowed her in the ribs, discreet in the way a thunderp is discreet.

    We moved as a small procession through the waking manor. In the kitchen Maria stood with steam rising around her like prayer,dling soup into crockery that would be eaten by men who hadn’t expected to be hungry at this hour. She stopped us with a hand on Sofia’s sleeve and kissed the girl’s forehead the way grandmothers are allowed to kiss even queens. “Youe home to us if you want,” she said. “Or send word that your home found you elsewhere. Both are allowed.”

    Lucio pressed a leather pouch into Lucien’s palm. “Coins,” he said. “And a wedding ring I wore once when the world was lessplicated. It buys better treatment in human inns than a crest ever will.”

    Outside, the sky had diluted from te to pearl.

    The horses were ready–two steady bays for the road, chosen for sense over speed; two remounts tethered behind.

    Beta Alfonso hadid the gear as if he’d been born with a list in his hand.

    On the mounting block, he unfurled a map already creased where fingers had thought too much in the night.

    “Here,” he said, tapping. “Avoid the old smugglers‘ path. Alpha Dorian’s men know it. Take the salt road to the mill and then cut north by the willow stand–there’s a ford there that doesn’t look like a ford, which is the best

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    kind. In two days you’ll hit the border market; keep to the fishmongers‘ side and no one will sniff you. Another two, and you’ll see the first Romanian waystones. Vaughan’s pass is watched; take the shepherds‘ btrack /bjust below it. If anyone stops you before then, you trade names for names–not truths.” He looked up, expression going from clerk to brother. “I’ve sent ahead. There will be a woman with a red scarf at the border inn. Tell her you’re buying winter apples.”

    Sofia said the word very softly. “Winter.”

    Lucien slid his hand over hers, thumb drawing one, slow circle. “We’ll have onei,” /ihe said. “Many.”

    Monica opened her case on the mounting block.

    No potions winked inside, no theatrical smoke–just the lives that carry you through the valley between intention and fact.

    Row on row of little bottles and wrapped leaves. She touched each one as she named it: “Comfrey for wounds. Willow for fever. Witchhazel when you can’t get a bruise to mind its manners. Rosemary and ash–rub it in your hair and clothes when you need to smell like nothing in particr. Lavender for sleep when the road gives you stones for pillows. Wolfsbane–no, don’t touch it–carried only, never used, and only if something older than you decides you look delicious.” She closed the lid and set the case in Sofia’s hand. “I know each leaf. I will know when you use them, and I will talk unkindly to the ones that misbehave.”

    Audrey unsheathed one of the des and turned it so the morning made a clean line along the edge. “This stays hidden in your boot,” she said, looking at Sofia because she knew Lucien would think his own body enough. “If you don’t need it, it’s a friend. If you do, it will already know you.” To Lucien she added, “And there’s a second in the saddle roll. You’re fast, but fast bleeds if it thinks it’s immortal.”

    He epted the admonition without pride. “I’ve bled enough to know it’s messy,” he said.

    Sofia hugged Audrey with a fierceness that startled them both. “Thank you,” she whispered into armor that smelled of oil and rain.

    Audrey’s hand hovered awkwardly and thennded on the girl’s back, uncertain as a woman teaching herself softness again.

    “Keep your head down,” Audrey muttered. “And your spine up.”

    They mounted. The horses shifted, snorted, settled under hands that tried to be steady. Monica stepped back, then forward again, impulsive, and tucked a scrap of blue ribbon into Sofia’s palm. “For your hair,” she said. “Or your wrist. Or the door of your first house.”

    For a breath we hovered on the cusp of everything.

    Farewells are cliffs; they make liars of lungs.

    I reached up and touched Sofia’s knee. “If you change your mind,” I said, “we make space. Always.”

    She lifted her chin, tears glossing her eyes without spilling. “If we change our minds, we bring you bread from the border market and tell you every ridiculous thing that happened on the way back.”

    “That’s allowed too,” I said, and smiled because she needed me to.

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    Francesco moved to Lucien’s stirrup. The vampire looked down, inecting ck with red, unflinching. “You carry a history that makes wolves‘ backs rise,” Francesco said. “And you came anyway. Hold her as if the world deserves to keep her because you two decided it does.”

    “I do,” Lucien said simply.

    Fate has a thousand speeches; sometimes it learns economy.

    Francesco stepped away. “Gate,” he called, and the east arch yawned open to the hill road.

    We went with them as far as the willow stand.

    It felt right.

    Wolves rose from ditches and brush as we passed, falling into a loose escort–not as jailers, not as witnesses- just the family you gather when a leaving needs blessing.

    At the stand, where the road breaks left into scrub and a small, stubborn stream argues with the ditch, we halted. This was the ce that looks like nothing, which is exactly where magic likes to linger.

    I dismounted and took Sofia’s hands while she was still in the saddle. Her fingers were cold; mine were not much better. “Breathe,” I told us both.

    She did. The breath shivered, steadied. “I thought I’d be more afraid,” she said, almost bemused. “But right now all I can think is–did we pack enough socks? Are there apples this time of year? Will Lucien’s family hate me? Will they think I ruined him? Will they-”

    “Love you for loving their own,” I said. “And if they falter, you set the kettle and use your eyebrows until they see sense.” I squeezed her hands, then tightened: the old human way of making emphasis when words are apprentices to bigger truths. “He is not ruined. He is found.”

    She swallowed. Nodded, twice. “Thank you,” she said, and then, quieter, the admission that costs, because it gives you back to yourself, “I’m afraid anyway.”

    “Good,” I said. “Fear means you’re carrying something worth protecting.”

    Francesco and Lucien touched forearms–no rank in it, just agreement.

    I feel like this is how we, as a parents let our kids went with their mate.