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A splash ca the spell Bastien’s eyes shot toward the noise, and as I turned, I caught sight of anear the center of the lake Then he beca me to make hiht on us

Dane

Apparently co to his senses, Bastien i in a disconcerted whisper, "We should go"

Victoria

On the way to the bank, Bastien dipped down and e a familiar plant A slimy, bulbous weed But unlike the whitish river weed, this had a greenish tinge "Lake weed," Bastien explained

We plucked off some of the mucousy bubbles and ate them in a hurry Lake as no more unpleasant in taste than the river weed--quite bland, really--but the snotty substance slid just as slowly down rabbed my satchel and retreated behind a tree to dry ed Bastien pro Once I’d finished, I returned to see that he had also changed into another loose set of clothes

I pulled h before we returned to where we had left the rest of the olves It seeht of Dane fro out of the lake Had he been spying on us? From Bastien’s concerned look, he seeher

About a quarter of an hour later, everybody declared they were ready to leave I cliain, and we set off

The next few days passed in a blur of travel

First, we ather the Cuthrals--a burly, dark-toned tribe--along with two other packs Once he had these three additions, Bastien suggested to Sergius that we had enough groups to split ways and gather the rest faster Sergius agreed to his suggestion, since it was far ether Each pack was allotted groups to gather over the next few days Our fellow travelers also agreed that ould only have tiest packs, at least for now They decided to gather fifty in total With fifty, Bastien seeh toon the hunters

But first, of course, everybody had to y should be This was so my head about, and Bastien had not offered any further clarification as to his thoughts either

Thus, we all split ways, pro to meet our quota of recruited packs within five days, after which ould all gather in Rock Hall--another suggestion that was posed by Sergius as his own idea, rather than Bastien’s, since they were far more likely to accept it from hiathering the packs, given that most of them we stopped by were either unknown or eneo in and do the recruiting For us, it was a lot of waiting around, followed by ot bored at all Bastien was too interesting adeeper into his childhood--like what it was like to grow up as a wolf in The Woodlands--and his culture He also introduced s: how they used to pass their tiether It sounded like his siblings had been his best friends

I also told him more about The Shade, as well as the current state of affairs on Earth He seemed impressed when I described the role that The Shade had cohters we had beco that I knew about the hunters--so that he, understandably, took particular interest in

We lived mostly on a diet of either river or lake weed, since there did not seee of fresh water in The Woodlands, and it was quick and convenient I guessed that some of the more courteous wolf tribes we visited would’ve invited us inside for a hot meal, but there were just soto accoain unaware ofto, so we could not travel up in the trees… which left us on the ground, enduring Brucella’s constant glares I was not sure if it was justus now than she had before Dane had spotted Bastien holding me in the lake At least we had parted ith the Bonereavers for the tiht, Bastien always escaped withforward to the end of the day e could get away fro these stolen hours that we had our best conversations We could both feel much freer around one another But often, we did not talk Often, we just sat together, enjoying the silence and each other’s presence

Over the next four days, the Northstones worked hard, even cutting down on resting times to meet our quota Fortunately, we reached an area that seemed to be far more populated olves and there was less distance to travel between each den By the fourth evening, we’d gathered every pack allotted to us except for one We had to hope that the other tribes had been as successful as we had been

We weren’t left to wonder long about how the Bonereavers had fared As we prepared to stop for the night, we crossed paths with the, and with theathered around me now, I could hardly even estiius that they had been successful in securing their quotient, and tomorrow they had just a couple more to retrieve before ere all due tomore smoothly than I had expected, and I was surprised at how the wolves were cooperating Though this was such an eency, they really had no choice but to put aside their differences