The Heartwood I know that I ended it,

It was a pretty name; not one he'd heard before, and not one like any he'd heard before. Katmai filed the sound of it away, committing her face, too, to memory.

The question was not unexpected. He'd been wondering about her, too.

"I was born in a weald not too far from here," he told her, pointing with his nose toward the coast. "I grew up in a pack called Moontide."

Mostly. He did not think his full history worth the lesson, at the moment.

"Where are you from?" he asked her, glad to return the question.