The more exhausted Blake was with his toils, the deeper and longer he usually slept, once he actually let himself climb into bed. Ah, climb into bed intending to sleep, I have to clarify.

I wish I was so lucky. No matter how many times I told myself to relax, I could never shut down when something burdened my mind. I could meditate or count sheep, drink warm milk or camomile tea, take long, frigid showers and chew Brazil nuts—and my mind would still race faster than all the bullet trains in Japan.

That night wasn't different.

At three A.M., I still hadn't slept a wink. I slithered out of bed, threw a resentful glance at Blake's angelic smile, listened to his gravelly snores and tip-toed into the kitchen.

The state-of-the-art coffee machine filled the air with the magic smell. Now, coffee, that's a reliable thing compared to a million remedies to get a girl to sleep. That's why we only need one...too bad it works to wake you up, not the other way around!

I took my mug to the armchair by the window. In the winter, at this hour, the view beyond our panoramic windows was impenetrable. I peered into the darkness, imagining the mountains that lay there, as they lay for millions of years, sheltering the sacred sites of the Pacific Nother-West Pack.

The pulse of headache subsided after a few mouth-burning gulps of my coffee. I bobbed in tune with my thoughts—yes, yes, I have to visit the Moon Goddess.

When the coffee truly kicked in, I emptied the mug in the last huge swallow and rushed to get my jacket. It was heavy with moisture and crusted with salt from yesterday, but I wrestled my arms, then shoulders into it anyway. A bit of discomfort couldn't stop me, and as soon as I left the hotel, I'd be in my werewolf form.

A group of early travelers rattled their bags across the lobby of the Olympian, but otherwise the hotel was quiet. The Gamma at the desk called out to them with a rooster's cheerfulness. I stopped for a second to appreciate the gilded plaster, the marble and, most of all, the pack.

The smallest pack in North America, my Dad had called us. It might very well be true, but my pack built this layer into something that was second to none in the world and everyone, from Alpha to Omega, kept on improving it.

As I entered the forest and shifted into the werewolf form, the thoughts of the tireless Gamma at the desk, Blake sleeping in our suite, and the cloud hanging over Grauberg moved my feet towards a different destination.

Instead of the well-trodden path to the Night's Mirror Lake, I wound deeper into the woods to the boundary of the pack's influence. There, the grumpy spruces hid a grove of birches. Even by the starlight and with the clouds hiding the first-quarter moon, their silvery trunks were clearly visible, all lined up like columns of a nature's temple. Threads of mist stretched between the trees in a ghost's shroud.

As if the sight wasn't eerie enough, the protective wards sent chills down my spine, dotted my arms with goosebumps, and made me hear phantom rustles behind me. They used to be in place to turn away random hikers so that no human could glimpse the Moon Arch by accident, but tonight even I would have bailed the second I lost my focus. The wards this strong had to have a living source nearby. A werewolf, protecting his pack's territory.

"Hello?" I called, fighting to keep the quiver out of my voice. "It's Luna Celeste. Watchers, show yourself!"

Two shadows slipped out of the cover of the spruces, black cut-outs against the backdrop of the faintly glowing grove. A coal-black werewolf and a coal-black wolf, the perfect predators of the night. Red eyes gleamed at me like embers.

I exhaled, fighting down the jitters, as recognition dawned on me. "Harold, you really should get some sleep. You look awful."

"So do you, Luna."

I didn't expect a compliment, but still. "Where did your manners go?"

"Plying you with compliments is Blake's job. What are you doing here on a night when the moon is already in the first quarter?"

It was hard to read anything on the lupine features, unless it was a huge snarl. The distorted voices didn't carry sentiments the same way as the human ones do either. Or maybe it was just my outsider past that caused me to struggle with it. Yet, I had a distinctive impression that Harold worded his question the way he did, because he knew of my secret visits to the Moon Arch.

A shiver passed through me. "Are you...are you spying on me?"

"Spying?" Harold shrugged his hulking shoulders. "I'm the sheriff. Whenever someone triggers the border wards, it's like fire ants crawling under my skin."

"I... I'm sorry. I didn't know it affected you like this. I thought we only monitored for potential intruders."

Except, of course, Blake had ordered security tightened when he wanted to keep me from going through the Arch. To think of it, these measures were never rolled back, because Blake feared the Arch and didn't want my ascension to inspire the youngest, the weakest and the most desperate among the pack to follow my example, hoping to gain more power. The Arch was off limits, period.

Harold watched me put it together. "You come to talk to your wolf."

Harold's wolf, who until then had sat motionless on his haunches, lifted his muzzle up and howled a piercing note. I supposed he was curious about the white wolf beyond the Arch. Or maybe he knew that she'd only cross the boundary between the worlds on the day of a great turmoil. It was always hard to tell what the wolves thought—and Harold was no better. His red eyes flickered amidst his black fur, so he must have felt something, but that was it.

I rushed to explain my trespass. "I just can't stay away. I miss her, so whenever the veil between our two universes thins out, I have to come to the Arch...even if I could only hear her call from our side. I never cross over, I swear. Rules are rules."

"Even if you did, that's not my business," Harold said. "I only concern myself with genuine threats."

Since when was Harold so reasonable? I couldn't completely believe his new non-judgmental attitude, but gratitude warmed my chest. Wouldn't our lives be so much simpler if others let us be? Particularly, at the cost to themselves, like Harold had done.

"You should have said something about the alarms hurting you. I would have..." I bit down with my canines. It would have changed little. Every new moon, my wolf-heart and the Arch drew me like a magnet. I would have gone to see my wolf. Maybe not every moon cycle, but I would have come here often, and sent those ants crawling under Harold's skin. On some days, I might have even felt glad that he wasn't well. My cheeks flushed with shame with this uncomfortable realization. "I'm sorry."

"It's okay. I don't sleep well anyway. I mean, who does?" Harold said. He must have chuckled at the end of his rhetorical question to mask his lifeless tone, but he didn't fool me. My mate was a stoic man, and he taught me that stoicism came from a seemingly bottomless pool of strength. It was vibrant in its own way. I didn't feel that depth with Harold, only a resignation to suffer. Even a grim satisfaction with it.

Despite the bad blood between us, I was growing concerned for him.

"You shouldn't be here tonight," I said. "Scarlett wouldn't attack this early in the lunar phase. Even if she somehow occupied the grove this minute, she wouldn't be able to hold it against the pack's counterattack until the new moon. And without it, this is a lovely patch of forest, nothing more. Go and sleep, take a day off. Do something before you burn out."

"Sometimes I feel like nobody knows the real Scarlett except for me. Not even you. But...." He folded his enormous arms across his chest, "but you came here tonight for the same reason I did. Deep down you fear Scarlett will pull a stunt when we least expect it."

I opened my maw to argue, but the only sound I made was the click of my teeth when I shut it. Apparently, Harold didn't just know the real Scarlett. He understood the scared child who hid in the farthest corner of my soul.

"Don't worry about the wicked witch. I'll be here, waiting," he said. "Every night, if I have to. She'll come."

"I believe you."

The wind blew clouds away from the quarter-moon, and the light's angle was perfect to highlight Harold's werewolf figure. I didn't need to read his expression. With his arms crossed, and his knees bent, but his back straight—the very image of a tragic nemesis—I couldn't do much here. My purpose is to decipher the Moon Goddess' will for grand designs, or find a pleasing way to resolve everyday troubles. In this, her hand was clear.

So clear, that a pale light flashed in my mind. I swayed on my feet, shading my eyes with the clawed hand, but the image was as bright as the full moon, even though it was colorless, like old films.

I fixed Harold with my gaze. The otherworldly reverberations echoed in my voice. "The fated mates broken asunder by treachery, by the Moon Arch they shall meet."

"Luna," Harold whispered, "is this from the Goddess?"

I cleared my throat. "Yes. The Goddess would bring Scarlett and you together, no matter if you camp out here or just drop by for a few minutes each night. So, don't drain your strength on the vigil."

He grabbed my hand. "You promise me this, even though you know what I plan to do?"

Were I in my human form, a bitter smile would have twisted my lips. "Yes, Harold. That's why I shared the prophecy with you as it sprung to my mind."

Then, feeling like I could freeze the world in another Ice Age, I added, "And that's why I told you to save your strength. I see your meeting by the Arch and the mute shadow of death. Whose death it is, I don't know."

Harold exhaled noisily, then laughed like a maniac. His wolf weaved around his knees like black smoke, making me wonder where Scarlett's wolf might have gone, and if she watched us with baleful eyes.

"I'll take it," Harold said after he laughed his fill. "And I'll rest, once I'm sure my deputies can maintain the wards. I swear."

"Okay." Rubbing my claws together, despite the fur keeping me toasty, I glanced one last time at the birches. They all look equally beautiful, with no hint that the two of them were truly special, selected by some mystic algorithm to frame the Moon Arch on the nights when the Moon was new.

***

Even if I didn't have a personal matter weighing heavily on my heart, I would have probably visited the Night's Mirror Lake after my conversation with Harold. The lake was the most tranquil place in the world, and I needed to calm my nerves.

I sat on the bare black sand—neither snow, nor vegetation never covered the Night's Mirror shores—knees pulled under my chin and stared at the black water that never as much as rippled.

Nothing gazed back at me from the deep. I was alone, safe, silent and still.

My eyelids grew heavy... I might have dozed off, if my inexperience permitted me to maintain a werewolf form in my sleep. I shifted back to my human form without noticing it, until the night's chill crawled under my jacket. It was time.

I shivered, climbed back to my cramping feet and stomped them. The shivers intensified, rattling me till my teeth chattered. Contrary to common sense, I stripped—not without squealing—every shred of clothing.

That is, everything, except my fated soulmate ring. I twisted the ring around my finger, so that the blue moonstone with the twinned silver stars faced the palm of my hand. I squeezed it tight and walked into the lake. Despite not being frozen, not even at the edges, the water slashed at my toes like a blade of ice. I trudged on.

Goddess, I received one prophecy today already. I understand you look after the entire werewolf nation, but please, please...I need to know if I'll ever go in heat again.

The water barely splashed around my ankles, then hips, then the waist. Once my skin turned numb to its touch, I glanced at the stars and the quarter moon, inhaled as much air as my lungs would hold and crouched, allowing the water to close over my head. My hair floated in white strands around my face like seaweed, mixing with bubbles. Silence pressed onto my ears. I waited.

Seconds passed. I couldn't feel my body. My lungs burned. Yet, I waited.

Then, in the stillness, the song rang.

Line of stones weaves on and on,

For the writ of your constellation

Into my mirror you shan't look

But you shall look into yours.

"Thank you!" My late mother's voice sang this new song to me. It made my heart ache with gratitude to the Goddess, who could have chosen another messenger or another way...but it was Mom.

I broke through the surface of the water gasping for breath and weeping. Disoriented, I swiveled around, hoping for at least a glimpse of my mother's ghost.

The shore was empty, save for the pile of my clothes. Sniffling and shivering—no longer from cold, but from impatience—I pulled what I could over my dripping body, shifted to the werewolf and ran like the wind. Mirror, my mirror, held my answer! It had probably been there all along, and I didn't see it. How often do we miss what's under our noses! I had to get to my mirror!

The late winter sunrise gilded the towers of the Olympian in rose-gold when I burst out of the trailhead, panting for breath. I barely remembered to shift to a human, and fix up my disarrayed clothes. Then I sailed through the hotel to Blake's and mine suite.

"Blake!" I yelled to the bundle of blankets that hid his sleeping form on the bed, "Blake, the prophecy! About me...us...our children!"

He didn't even stir.

I wanted to shake him awake, but I was too impatient, so I ripped the stupid clothes off again, baring myself in front of the mirror. I peered at my reflection with the intense scrutiny I had never afforded it. "Blake, wake up for Goddess's sake, I—"

I squealed as my finger poked at the Luna Mark under my left clavicle. It was so familiar and it appeared on my skin at the same time as the scatter of the silver speckles, the sign of my meteoric bloodline. What I hadn't realized before was that there was a pattern—

"Blake!"

The pattern of two bigger silver freckles...like the twinned stars on top of my Luna's Mark...and then...

Then there were the fine lines woven into the whole of the gorgeous design of the Mark.

I traced them with my fingertip through to the other side, each one unbroken, each ending in a smaller star. "Blake, this is like a genealogical chart! Our constellation! Blake! Wake up! Come and see!"

The sleepy-head didn't respond, so I hopped onto the bed and yanked the blankets off of Blake.

Or should have had, if the mattress wasn't empty, if filled with his fresh scent.

"B-blake?" For a second, I sat on the bed, blinking and processing the fact that this huge burrito was all blankets, and no Blake. Where on Earth—

What time was it?

I grabbed my phone from the nightstand—it was just past eight A.M.—and a single text greeted me.

Mie: Celeste, as soon as you can, get your ass to the boardroom. Emergency!

Celeste: Is Blake okay?

There was no response.