Page 124 of Northern Light

All of them with the same impossible ability.

Twilson had learned about these anomalies years ago, decades now.

The old council had known about them. Had studied them. Had tried to understand what made certain individuals capable of creating such calm, even in feral wolves.

It was the secret reason Frosthaven Academy existed at all. Not to help latent shifters—that was the public purpose, the acceptable face. But underneath, from the very beginning, the academy had been designed as a net. A way to gather young shifters in one place and watch for the signs. To identify the rare ones before they knew what they were.

They'd never found an answer tohowit worked.

But they'd documented the pattern. The signs. The way to identify a potential before she knew what she was.

Twilson reached into the folder and withdrew a new photograph. Crisp. Recent. Pulled from the academy's student database just this morning.

Lumi's face stared up at him.

Young. Determined. Those same eyes that the camera couldn't quite capture but that Twilson had seen in person. That pull. That quality.

He placed her photo among the others. Fifteen became sixteen.

For a long moment, he simply looked at them. Sixteen women. Fifty years of history. A pattern that refused to die no matter how many times the council tried to bury it.

Individuals with an unexplained ability to reach feral wolves. To calm them. To form bonds that shouldn't be possible. To pull them back from madness when every medical intervention failed.

The old council had feared them. Had tried to control them. Had, in some cases, eliminated them when control proved impossible.

And now there was a new one. Here. On his campus. Forming bonds with ferals and winning council votes and making him look like a fool.

Twilson gathered the photographs. Placed them back in the folder. All except Lumi's.

That one he kept out. Propped it against his lamp where he could see it.

She didn't know what she was. That much was clear. She thought she was just a student with unusual bonds. Thought her effect on the ferals was about love and determination and refusing to give up.

She had no idea.