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"Hunt her down. Whatever she used to anchor that curse exists somewhere physically an object, something she's holding onto. The moment it breaks, the curse breaks with it."

"I'll remember that." Pandora clawing after my power was no surprise. But she could wait. Today I had enough weight already.

My eyes slid toward Shante. Last time we'd sat in this kitchen, she had quietly handled what I couldn't. That particular debt had lived in the back of my mind ever since. Things were different now Lucien's grip on Frost Fang had changed what was available to me.

"Let us handle payment through my pack," I told Ellie. "Everything you shared today carried real value."

Her hand rose and fell, brushing the offer aside. "You've become someone I want to see through to the end of her story."

"You still live out here by yourself," I said, my gaze moving around the worn kitchen. "There must be gaps in things you can't easily get your hands on."

"Always." A small smile. "Put together a list. Shante can carry it back on her next trip out."

"You're saying that as if I won't be the one standing at your door," I said flatly.

Ellie set down her mug with a soft sound and looked at me really looking the way someone studies a spark before it catches.

"This place will release you sooner than you think. Your magic sleeps behind that curse, yes but something else lives in you. Something older than spells and bloodlines. A wolf that old stories barely trusted themselves to describe." Her eyes caught a strange light for just a fraction of a second electric, there and gone before I could be certain I'd seen it at all. When her voice returned, it had dropped to the kind of quiet that fills a room completely.

"What is coming for you has known your name for a very long time."