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“The alpha thinks she’s falling,” I continue. “He crosses the boundary.” I find the next line. “The beta calls her name.”

Ezra goes still. “And Susannah turns around.”

“She chooses them?” Theo asks quietly.

I stare at the wording. She turned when she heard their grief. My thoughts catch, and my heart breaks for the past. “No.”

Both men look at me.

“She responds to their pain.” I pull the keeper instructions beside the account and read them one more time to make sure. “The entire ritual is designed to give the walker enough distance to make the choice without the pack’s fear pulling her backward. The alpha follows. The beta calls. Susannah hears them suffering and turns around.”

Theo’s face tightens with grief, but he doesn’t defend the alpha. “What happened next?”

I read, “‘The road doesn’t open. The carved tooth heats. Water crosses dry ground.’”

The house knocks hard enough to rattle the shelf. I grab Jessamine’s notes and scan them again. I pick up the pattern.

Fear in the water. Grief through the roots. The road bends toward the strongest plea. It’s on the edge of my mind, just beyond reach.

“What does that mean?” Ezra asks.

“I don’t know yet.” I hate those words. I love them too. Not knowing means there is hope. “What happens after the failed ritual?”

Ezra moves to the computer. “I’ll search the later keeper records.”

“Search for keywords like water, grief, dreams, bond pain, route, voice,” I say, writing the list in my field notebook.

Ezra’s fingers fly over the keyboard.

Theo checks the cameras, then returns to the table. His body stays angled toward the doors, but his attention remains on me. “I can get you anything you need.”

“Can you grab Scarlet’s notes? The folder Wes sent after the museum fire.”

Theo brings the tablet from the other desk while Ezra opens the search results. “Found three.”

“Print all of them.”

The printer begins its dramatic contribution.

I pull Scarlet’s observations onto the screen. She mentions emotions that feel like memories but don’t belong to her and bond distortion close to water ritual materials.

I check her notes against the list of Ezra’s symptoms. Fading near the cemetery. Dreams of the failed release. A body trapped between being present and gone.

The first post-ritual route account slides out of the printer. I read it standing. The alpha hears her calling from the water after her death.

Second page. The beta dreams the road while awake. Packs living near the old channel report grief that doesn’t belong to them.

The third reference: The flowers blacken. The release road no longer rests.

My skin goes cold. “What was happening before Susannah?”

Ezra scans the earlier records for a few minutes and then turns to me. “Route maintenance. Completed releases. Flood damage.”

“Search just for grief. Any references to shared grief or grief that doesn’t belong or people hearing their dead mates.”

His answer comes a few minutes later. “No.”

“Okay. Check for bond pain and any references to it spreading between strangers.”