The delicate animal—it had stopped moving. Fear was rising, all salt on its skin. It swung its head. Its breath came quick. Its eyes were wide at things that moved and smelled and clattered in the distance.

Fear, the wolf understood, should be a running. A scampering. A scurrying. A hiding in shadows, silent and still. But the slender-limbed creature moved on, though he could taste its shivering skin.

His own fear grew thick in his fur. It was the feeling of teeth in his mouth.

He wanted mountain and sky. Wind pine and forest sun. Not these strange smellings and sounds. Not this fear. He wanted to turn away, to return to the hills.

But the delicate animal—it was a fullness.

The delicate animal—it was more than the feeling of teeth in his mouth.

The delicate animal—it was the emptiness of what had once been his hand no longer empty.

The delicate animal was all that he wanted.

He would follow and follow and follow.

XLV

A TERRIFYING EAGERNESS, OR CURDS ROUNDING IN WHEY

Under the moonlight, the world was wide and gray. Trees had given way to stubbled land—forests simply cut and cleared, only the bristle of stumps, pox-marks across the wide expanses, remaining. Rae, eyes on the city walls that towered ever higher as they approached, shuddered, ill with the prickling emptiness. She’d never seen land like this—scabbed, brittle—or imagined such structures, stone upon stone—like mountains scraped out and remade.

Beneath her, caring nothing for her trembling, the horse lengthened its stride. It recognized the path ahead and clopped eagerly along. No, not path. Rae frowned. She didn’t think it could be called a path anymore. Road was a word she knew. Though she had never seen such a thing, she supposed this well-trod, packed-clay route had turned path into road.

The wolf did not seem to like it, either. Though he’d traveled with her all through the dark forest and past all the small villages, steady and comforting, he trailed her now, walking with a kind of prancing, as if he wished to flick away with each step the feeling beneath his paws. As Rae reached the wide arch of the city gates, he growled. Romm.

“You’re all right,” she whispered, as much to herself as to the wolf. “You’re all right.” She leaned, gaping at the vast structure as she passed under it.

The wolf whined. Looking over her shoulder, Rae found he’d stopped—his body, ears, tail tensed and quivering. He whined again. Rmmm. He would not cross through.

“W…” Rae felt his name on her tongue. She wanted to call to him, wanted him beside her… but finding herself now inside the city, the maze of alleys and buildings branching around her, she realized she should not. Could not.

If a wolf were found inside the walls… Her chin quivered. No. Though she would feel safer with him beside her, he would not be safer with her.

She swallowed. “There you are,” she managed to say, hoping he would hear in her words enough comfort to return home.