The first thing was the cold.
Not cold, the physical temperature didn't change.
But a cold that came from inside, from the place where the wolf had been, and for a moment it was so complete that I had to stop and breathe through it.
Kael's hand tightened on mine.
"Still here," he said.
His voice sounded slightly off, as if the air was processing it differently.
"Still here," I confirmed.
We walked deeper.
The trees inside the boundary were different.
Not deformed — not the twisted, tortured shapes I'd half-expected, but still.
With a stillness that the outside world's trees didn't have, a quality of having not moved in a very long time.
The light filtered through them in thin vertical lines that didn't quite behave the way light should, arriving at angles that didn't match t
