Chapter 53. You’ve Got Your Own Runner to Find

Caleb’s POV

So we do. Desmond gives them the basics, watchers on the line, the first notes Selena heard under stone, our counter-song, the shape that rose where the water pretends it has no face. Cleo lays maps over words and puts pins where everything happened to make it visible. Selena’s aunt threads the names of wards through it until even the vampire scribe nods in silent approval.

Selena stands when they need to hear the sound of it. She doesn’t sing, thank the Goddess, but she hums one low line into the room and you could hear a paper cut with how fast it goes still. Skin prickles. Aster’s mouth quirks, impressed despite herself. On the wolf bench, two of them sit back like they just remembered they have bodies.

“Lirael,” one of the witch elders says softly, brushing a finger across the edge of her notes. “Not a siren. I haven’t written that word in twenty years.”

“Write it twice,” I say. “She has sisters.”

Pens scratch.

Then the wolf