Nova Peak If you must live, darling one, just live

You can't, she insisted, feeling the back of her lower jaw clench and quake. It was bad enough she no longer had a place in the pack. She didn't think she could stomach being accused of stealing their members in the process. Sure, she knew that's not what happened, but that wouldn't stop the others talking about it. More than anything, she would prefer to never be spoken of again—another product of her ever-present anxiety surrounding others, and her irrational paranoia that everyone was out to get her in some way.

Phaedra needs you here. Your mom needs you here. Mahler— She meant to say that Mahler needed him as well. Stag was Mahler's brother's son, and as much a son to him as Thade was. He was essentially Mahler's heir, she believed. Something like that. She'd never really asked about all the details regarding Stigmata. He would be devastated to lose Stag in a way she no longer believed he would be devastated to lose her. At the same time, the ugly reminder of Mahler's indifference toward her struck her dumb, reminding her that Mahler didn't deserve a goddamn thing, certainly not any courtesy from her or from Stag. The desire to hurt him by letting Stag leave with her was overwhelming.

A lot of feelings surged when his name left her mouth, anger and pain and betrayal and confusion and heartache and, weirdly, a kind of homesickness, and all of it washed out in an abrupt tidal wave of tears she'd been holding in since the meeting.