The roster board outside the pack hall had my name on it for five years straight.

North Patrol Lead: Ava.

Tonight, someone had pinned a fresh sheet over it.

I stood there with the Moon Ceremony drums already starting up behind me, reading the new name three times as if the ink might rearrange itself. Celeste. My foster sister. The girl who still asked me which side of the creek the old den markers were on.

"Ava!"

I turned. Logan was coming across the clearing, Beta insignia pinned to his collar, and Celeste was right beside him in a crisp charcoal patrol jacket so new it still had fold lines across the chest. Her blond hair was braided back the way I wore mine on duty.

She saw my face and slowed down, fingers tugging at her sleeve.

"Hey," Logan said, like this was any other night. "I was going to find you."

"You found me." I nodded at the board. "What is this?"

He had the decency to glance at it before answering. Logan had raised us both after our parents died, and he'd always had this way of looking tired and certain at the same time, like every decision he made had already cost him something.

"Celeste's had a great year," he said. "Her tracking scores are up, the Alpha likes her, and she's ready for more responsibility. I'm naming her North Patrol Lead tonight."

The drums picked up. Someone laughed near the fire pit.

"Tonight," I repeated. "You're telling me ten minutes before the ceremony."

"It came together fast."

"I've mapped every inch of that border. I built the patrol routes. I've been running the first-night training for the younger wolves since they were in middle school." My voice stayed level, which surprised me. "So what about me?"

Logan didn't even hesitate.

"You can help her."

For a second, I honestly thought he was joking. He wasn't. He said it the way he'd tell me to grab milk on the way home, easy and obvious, like the answer had never been in question.

Celeste stepped forward and caught my hand. Her palm was clammy.

"Ava, I told him this was a bad idea," she said, eyes going glossy. "I don't want to take your spot. Seriously. If you're upset, I'll just tell the Alpha no."

I looked down at her hand on mine. She'd never once turned down anything I'd had first. Not my room when she moved in, not my jacket, not my seat next to Logan at dinner.

"Then tell him no," I said.

Her mouth opened. Nothing came out.

Logan put his hand on her shoulder before she had to find something. "Hey. You're not taking anything from anyone." He squeezed. "You're just finally getting a chance to prove yourself. Don't apologize for that."

Then he looked at me, and his voice dropped into the one he used on unruly pups. "Right, Ava?"

The whole pack was gathering. The Alpha was already at the stone circle, moonlight catching the silver in his beard.

I pulled my hand out of Celeste's. "Sure, Logan."

---

They called her name under the moon, and the pack cheered.

I stood at the edge of the circle and clapped because everyone could see me. Celeste bowed her head for the Alpha's blessing, then came out beaming, pink-cheeked, swallowed up by hugs and back slaps. Logan stood behind her like a proud father at graduation.

It took about fifteen minutes for the real questions to start.

Marcus, one of the senior trackers, made his way over with his beer. "Congrats, kid. So what's the plan for the ridge line? Are you keeping the double loop past the quarry, or cutting back to single rotations now that summer's over?"

Celeste smiled at him. Then her eyes slid sideways, straight to me.

I took a sip of my cider.

"Um," she said. "We're still, you know, finalizing that."

Marcus frowned but let it go. Behind him, a mother I'd trained two years ago stepped up with her son, a skinny fifteen-year-old who'd shift for his first night patrol next month.

"Jordan's so nervous," she said, laughing. "Will you be pairing him with an older wolf, or does he go out with the group? Ava always did the buddy system."

Celeste's gaze found me again, faster this time. A little desperate.

I knew the answer. Buddy system for the first three runs, then group, then solo along the creek only. I'd written the whole thing down in a binder that was sitting on my kitchen table.

I said nothing.

"Buddy system," Celeste said, too bright. "Definitely."

Then Harlan pushed through, still smelling of pine and wet earth from his shift. He didn't bother with congratulations.

"Rogue scent's been drifting over the north markers again. Three nights this week, stronger each time, and it's moving east of where it was in spring. What are you doing about it?"

The people around us went quiet. This was the question that actually mattered, and everyone knew it.

Celeste turned to me fully now, lips parted, eyes wide. Waiting. The way she'd waited my whole life for me to step in and smooth things over.

I held her gaze and kept my mouth shut.

The silence stretched until it became embarrassing. Harlan looked from her to me, then back again, and I watched understanding settle across his face.

"I'll look into it," Celeste finally whispered.

"You do that," Harlan said, and walked away.

Over her shoulder, Logan was staring at me. He wasn't proud anymore.

---

He didn't say a word the whole drive home. Celeste went straight upstairs, and her door clicked shut with a soft, wounded sort of sound.

Logan dropped his keys in the bowl hard enough to rattle it.

"What the hell was that?"

"What was what?"

"Don't." He turned around, arms crossed. "You stood there and let her drown in front of the entire pack. On her night. You knew every single answer."

"I did," I said.

"So why didn't you help her?"

"Because I wasn't asked to lead, Logan. She was."

He dragged a hand down his face. "I told you, you're supposed to help her. That was the whole point. She's new at this. She needed you, and you made her look like an idiot on purpose."

"She didn't need me to make her look like anything."

"Ava." It came out sharp. "That's beneath you."

I laughed, and it sounded strange even to me. My binder was still on the table between us, five years of tracking notes, tabbed and color-coded.

"Okay. Then explain something to me," I said. "If she needs me to answer every question about the routes, the training, the rogue scent, all of it, then why isn't the North Patrol Lead me?"

Logan's brow creased, like I'd asked something childish.

"Because you don't need to prove yourself anymore."

He said it gently. That was the worst part. He actually meant it as a compliment.

"Everyone already knows what you can do," he went on. "You'll be fine no matter what title you have. Celeste isn't like you. She needs this."

He patted my shoulder on his way to the stairs, and I heard him knock softly on her door. Heard her muffled crying. Heard him say, "Hey. It's okay. You did great."

I stood alone in the kitchen with my hand flat on the binder.

For years I'd thought being dependable was what earned me my place in this family. I'd shown up early, stayed late, fixed what broke, and never asked for anything, because I believed that was how you made yourself impossible to replace.

But it had worked the other way around.

The more I could handle, the easier I was to give away.

The route I'd built for the short-range patrol ran the long way around Miller's Hollow for a reason.

Celeste's first solo run as lead was supposed to follow it exactly. I'd put the map in her hands myself that afternoon, the loop traced in red marker, the hollow circled twice with a note beside it: Stay west. Old den site. Scent pools here.

So when my team crested the ridge half an hour into our own sweep and I caught four familiar trails cutting straight through the hollow instead of around it, my stomach dropped.

"Isn't that Celeste's group?" Marcus asked, sniffing the air beside me.

"Yeah." I was already moving. "And they're not supposed to be there."

We came down through the pines in human form, fast and quiet. The wind shifted, and then I smelled it too, thick and sour under the wet leaves. Strange wolf. Male. Recent enough that it still clung to the bark.

Rogue.

A scream cracked through the trees, followed by the ugly snap of bone that meant a shift. A forced one.

"Tessa!" Celeste's voice, high and panicked. "Tessa, come back!"

I broke into a sprint.

They were bunched in a clearing at the bottom of the hollow, three of them in patrol jackets, staring at a torn pile of clothes. Celeste spun toward me, face white.

"She just changed," she said. "She smelled something and she just changed, and she ran, and I didn't know which way she went, Ava, I swear I tried."

"Which direction?"

"I don't know!"

One of the other kids pointed east. Toward the scent. Toward the quarry.

"Marcus, get everyone back to the west trail and stay together," I said. "Nobody follows me."

Tessa had turned eighteen in August. She'd only shifted a handful of times, always with someone beside her, and never with the stink of a stranger flooding her nose. A young wolf that spooked didn't think. She just ran until something stopped her.

I didn't bother shifting. My human nose was worse, but my human voice was what she knew.

Her trail zigzagged through the brush like she couldn't decide what she was running from. Branches whipped at me. One caught my forearm and tore through my sleeve, and I felt the warm slide of blood but kept going.

I found her past the creek, a skinny gray wolf pressed against a boulder, ears flat, shaking so hard her whole body rattled. She was facing the wrong way. Home was behind her, and she had no idea.

"Hey, Tess." I slowed down and crouched, palms open. "It's me. It's Ava."

She snarled, then whined, then snarled again.

"I know it smells bad out here. I know. But you're okay." I kept my voice low and even. "You went through the hollow, and that's not your fault. Come here. Smell me. Just me."

It took a long minute. Then she crept forward and shoved her face into my bleeding arm, and I felt her shudder all the way down.

"Good girl," I whispered. "Let's go home."

On the way back, I passed the old boundary post at the edge of the hollow. The paint I'd put on it in spring had flaked almost completely off. Celeste's team had walked right by it. I pulled the marker kit from my belt, scrubbed my scent into the wood, and drew a fresh line of red across the top.

Anyone coming through here next would know exactly where our territory ended.

---

By the time I led Tessa into the clearing near the trailhead, Marcus had everyone accounted for. Tessa's mother was there, crying into her daughter's fur. The others stood around in shocked little clusters.

Then headlights swept across the trees, and Logan's truck skidded to a stop in the gravel.

He was out before the engine died. His eyes moved over all of us, over Tessa, over me with my shredded sleeve and my arm dripping onto my boots.

He went straight to Celeste.

He pulled her into his chest and held on, one hand cupped around the back of her head. "Hey. Hey, I've got you. Are you hurt?"

"No," she sobbed into his jacket. "No, I'm okay."

"Thank God."

He didn't ask where Tessa had been found. He didn't ask why the patrol had been in the hollow. He didn't ask anything.

Celeste lifted her head, eyes red and swimming. "I just wanted to try a faster way. The loop takes forever, and I thought if I could cut through, I'd show everyone I could run it better." Her voice cracked. "But Ava's never believed in me. She's been waiting for me to mess up since the ceremony."

I stared at her.

Logan's arm tightened around her. Then he turned to me, and his face went hard.

"You knew she was inexperienced," he said. "Why weren't you watching her?"

The clearing got very quiet. Marcus shifted his weight. Tessa's mother stopped crying long enough to look up.

My arm throbbed. I could feel the blood drying stiff between my fingers.

I looked at my brother for a long moment. At his hand still resting on Celeste's back. At the way he hadn't once glanced at the wolf I'd just carried out of the woods.

"Because she's the patrol lead," I said.

He opened his mouth. Nothing came out.

For a second, I thought he might actually hear it. His eyes dropped to my arm, and something flickered there, a hesitation.

Then Celeste sniffled, and he looked back down at her.

"We'll talk about this at home," he said.

"Sure."

I walked past them to check on Tessa. Over my shoulder, I caught Celeste watching me from inside Logan's arms. Her tears were already drying. Her chin had lifted a little, and there was something settled in her expression, almost relieved.

She'd gotten her answer. He'd stepped in for her again, in front of everyone, and I hadn't fought back.

---

That night, I went to the equipment building to restock my kit.

The little room at the end of the hall had been mine for five years. It wasn't officially anybody's. I'd just claimed it when the patrol gear started piling up, put in the shelves, labeled the bins, and hung my maps on the wall.

The door was open. Celeste was inside, stacking her new jacket and a box of brand-new flashlights on my shelf.

Ruth, who ran the supply desk, hovered in the hallway looking uncomfortable. "Ava. Sorry, honey. She said Logan okayed it. The lead should have the lead's room, that kind of thing."

"Did he," I said.

Celeste turned around with a flashlight in her hand. "He did. I texted him on the way over." She smiled carefully. "You don't mind, right? It just makes sense."

I waited for the anger to hit. It didn't. I just felt tired, and strangely clear.

"No," I said. "I don't mind."

Her smile faltered, like she'd expected more of a fight.

I stepped past her and started pulling my things down. My boots. My spare jackets. The marker kits I'd filled myself. The first-aid bag with my initials in permanent marker. The topographic maps off the wall, rolled and rubber-banded. My compass, my scent vials, my backup radio.

Ruth brought me an empty crate without a word. I filled it, then another.

Celeste stood in the corner, arms folded, watching the shelves empty. "You don't have to take everything tonight."

"It's mine," I said. "You'll want the space."

I hauled the last crate to my truck and slid it into the bed beside the others. I was turning the key when I heard footsteps pounding across the gravel.

Celeste appeared in my headlights, breathing hard, her face drained of color.

"Where's the notebook?"

I rolled down the window.

"The green one," she said. "The one that's always on the top shelf. With all the marker locations and the scent logs and the..." She swallowed. "It's not there. Ava, where is it?"

It was on the passenger seat next to me. Five years of every boundary post, every den site, every rogue sighting, every route I'd ever walked, in my handwriting.

She saw it. Her eyes locked onto the worn cover, and for the first time since the board went up outside the pack hall, she looked truly scared.

The window was still down, and Celeste's hand was already reaching through it.

I caught her wrist before her fingers got to the notebook. "No."

"Ava, come on." She tried to pull free, and when I didn't let go, her voice went high and reasonable, the voice she used when she wanted Logan to overhear her. "It's not like it's private. It's routes. It's literally about the pack."

"It's my handwriting."

She yanked her arm back and stood there in my headlights, breathing hard. Then she did something I didn't expect. She leaned in past me through the open window, grabbed the notebook off the passenger seat, and flipped it open.

I let her. Maybe I wanted her to see.

She turned pages fast at first, then slower. The scent drift logs from March, when the rogue trails started shifting east. The quarry line, marked in three colors by season. The den sites for four pup families, with the mothers' due dates written in the margins. A page listing which of our own people couldn't hold a full shift within three nights of the full moon, and which ones got jumpy after midnight on the ridge. Then Harlan's name, with a note beside it in red: Do not send past the creek within three nights of a full moon. Two years running.

Celeste's mouth had gone slack.

"You keep records on the patrol team," she said. "On Harlan."

"I keep records on everyone I've ever taken out there. That's how you bring them all home."

"This is—" She looked up. "You didn't put any of this in the binders."

"No. The binders are pack records. That's the pack's business." I held my hand out. "This is mine."

She closed the notebook against her chest. "If I don't have this, I'm going in blind on Saturday."

"Then ask me. Call me. I'll be at the trailhead at six like always."

"It's a full moon. Everyone will be watching me run it." Her voice cracked, and it wasn't fake this time. "You want me to stand in front of the whole team and ask permission from you?"

I took the notebook back. She let it go, which surprised me more than the grab had.

"Goodnight, Celeste."

---

She went to Logan before I got the truck in park behind the house.

I heard it through the wall between my room and his study, which had never been well insulated. Her crying. His low voice. My name, twice.

Later, he knocked on my door and didn't wait for an answer.

"She says you're setting her up to fail."

"Did you ask what's in the notebook?"

He leaned on the frame with his arms crossed. "She says it's maps."

"It's five years of everything I know about that border. The scent patterns. The marks that only show up three nights a month. Which of our own people can't be trusted past the creek on a full moon." I turned from my pack, where I'd been rolling a spare jacket. "If I hand it over, I'm handing over every wolf on that team."

Logan's jaw worked. For one second, I thought he might actually ask to see it.

Then he said, "She's got one night to run this right. Just let her have the notebook."

"No."

He left without slamming the door, which was somehow worse.

---

Saturday. The full moon came up fat and orange over the ridge, and the whole team assembled at the trailhead at seven.

Eleven of us. Harlan with his arms folded. Marcus already stretching. The younger ones standing a little too close together, talking too fast. Celeste at the front in her new jacket, reading off the route from a page she'd printed out at the house. She'd gone west. At least she'd taken that much.

Then Logan's truck came up the gravel and stopped short, and I knew.

He walked into the middle of the group like he had something to announce, which he did.

"Ava. A word."

"Say it here."

His eyes flicked around the team, then settled. Whatever. He'd already made up his mind. "I need you to give her the notebook."

Nobody spoke. Harlan turned his head.

"I did my handover Thursday," I said. "Route files, training schedules, boundary records, all of it. Ruth signed for it."

"I know. This is the other thing."

"The private thing."

"Yes," Logan said. "The private thing. She's leading tonight, and she needs it. You've had five years with it. She's had two days."

"And if a stranger walked up to me and asked for my personal notes on our own people, what would you say?"

"You're not a stranger. You're her sister."

"Right. I forgot." I looked at Celeste, who had gone very still at the front of the line. "Celeste. You want to tell them what's on Harlan's page?"

She didn't answer.

"Then hold on," I said, turning back to Logan. "A full moon is the worst night of the month to send a wolf out blind. You know that. You've run it. So if a patrol lead can't take this team across the creek without my private handwriting in her pocket—" I let it sit for a second. "—why does she have the position?"

The clearing went dead quiet. Someone near the back coughed and then stopped.

Celeste's face twisted. She looked young and mean all at once, and for a second I saw the real thing under the wet eyes. "You've been waiting for this since the ceremony."

"Since a lot longer than that," I said.

"Ava." Logan stepped closer, low and tired, and I knew the next words before he said them, because he'd said them my whole life. "You're my sister. Why can't you do this one thing for me?"

I laughed. It came up out of me before I could stop it, loud enough that Harlan shifted his weight.

"Exactly," I said. "I'm your sister." I reached up to my collar. "Not the spare part you keep taking from whenever Celeste needs something."

The pin came loose. Silver Creek, worn smooth where I'd rubbed my thumb across it for five years. I held it out flat on my palm, and Logan just stared at it.

"Here." I pushed it into his hand. "Take it. I'm done being the lead you put in the room and never on the board."

"Ava—"

"Run your team, Logan." I stepped back out of the group. "I'm off at eight."

I walked to my truck with eleven people watching me, and I didn't look at any of them, not even when Celeste called my name in that small, sorry voice she saved for when she'd already won.

---

The notice was on the pack hall board Monday morning. Joint border survey, opened last week between us and one other pack. Six weeks, paid, mixed crews. Two slots left.

I took a form from the stack and filled it out at the desk.

Name. Rank, which I left blank. Current assignment, which I crossed out and wrote None. Under preferred crew, I put the only thing that mattered.

It's a joint survey. You go where they send you.

Logan was in his office with the door open when I walked in and laid the form on his desk. He read it the way he read everything, top down, and I watched his face as he got to the partner line.

Blackridge Pack.

He stopped reading. His hand flattened over the paper.

"No."

"You sign the cross-pack requests," I said. "That's the whole process. Signature, then it goes to the Alpha."

"You're not working with him."

Blackridge. Ronan Hale. Two years ago there'd been a boundary dispute at the far north line, and Logan had met him in front of both packs, and by the end of it the two of them were standing three feet apart in the mud with Hale's people pulling him back. I'd heard the story a hundred times. I'd never once heard Logan admit he'd lost the ground.

"I heard he's fair," I said.

"He's a liability."

"He's an Alpha, Logan. He's leading the survey crew."

"Which is exactly why you're not going."

He still hadn't signed. He still had his hand on the paper like he could hold the whole thing down.

I reached over, slid the form out from under his palm, and folded it once.

"You just gave my job away," I said. "You don't get to choose my next one."

"Ava." His voice cracked on it, sharp enough that people in the hall outside turned. "Ava, don't—"

I was already through the door.

I took the form straight to the Alpha. He read it, signed it himself, and sent it through.