Blackfeather Woods I felt your shadow on the way home.

Very few things could have shaken her from the rage she'd flown into—but this did. She stopped yelling, prodding, demanding, staring open-mouthed at the thing around his neck. The collar. . . She felt the tightening around her own throat, and swallowed, taking a step back, lips moving soundlessly as she tried to work out her jumbled thoughts.

I had one of those, once, Maegi said in disbelief. I woke up one day in the field and it was there. A moon later, I woke up one morning and it was gone. H-how long have you had it? Would it leave him, eventually, as hers had, or would this forever mark Mou as something alien, foreign?

Not that he wasn't alien and foreign already; the troubled Redhawk would always be somewhat of an outlier, no matter where he went. He attracted attention.

Guilt. Goddamn it. She felt it seeping in, whittling away at her resolve. Her anger was slipping from her grasp, and soon all she would want to do was embrace him. Forget about the problems and troubles of their past, and focus only on the present—and a potential future. If he'd stay.

God, he had to stay.