Jocelyn came to see me three days after the poultice incident.

I was in the workshop, filing down the rough edge of a new band mold, when I heard her footsteps in the corridor. I knew her walk—measured, deliberate, the gait of a woman who had spent decades making every step count in rooms where she had no formal power.

She didn't knock. She just opened the door and stepped inside, closing it carefully behind her.

"Ashlyn," she said quietly.

I set the file down. Turned to face her.

Jocelyn looked older than I'd ever seen her. The lines around her mouth had deepened. Her eyes were red-rimmed, like she hadn't been sleeping.

"I spoke to Leland this morning," she said.

I waited.

"I invoked Elder Mother authority. Reminded him that you are his marked mate under pack law. That the bond is not a choice—it's a biological fact that precedes his memory loss."

Something in my chest tightened. "What did he say?"

Jocelyn's mouth compressed into a thin line. "He let me finish. Then he used Alpha tone."

I went very still.

Alpha tone on the Elder Mother was not a thing that happened. Not in Ironveil. Not since Leland's father had been alive.

"He pressed until I bared my neck," Jocelyn said, her voice flat. "Then he told me the mark is a biological error. That his wolf's damage will correct it in time. That Sylvie is what his wolf recognizes. And that my role is to support his judgment, not question it."

I looked at the band mold on the workbench. The silver gleamed dully in the forge light.

"I'm sorry," I said quietly.

Jocelyn shook her head. "Don't apologize to me. I went to the archive after. Looked into Elder Council override procedures."

I already knew what she'd found. I'd spent two nights in that same archive three weeks ago, reading the same texts.

"They require the Alpha's consent," I said.

"Yes." Jocelyn's voice was tight. "But I'm not done looking. There has to be another way."

She pulled a folded note from her pocket and set it on the workbench beside the mold. Then she left without another word.

I waited until her footsteps faded. Then I unfolded the note.

*I am looking for another way. Do not give up yet.*

I read it twice. Then I fed it into the forge and watched the paper curl and blacken.

I pulled out a scrap of parchment and wrote three words: *Wait. I'm trying.*

I gave it to the same Omega who'd delivered Jocelyn's note—a quiet older woman named Maris who had never once looked at me with pity. She took the folded paper without comment and disappeared down the corridor.

Then I went back to the locked box beneath the workbench and pulled out the severance papers.

I'd been working on them for two weeks. Every incident logged. Every witness named. Every date documented. The legal language was precise—I'd copied it directly from Pack Law Article 9, the abandonment-of-mate-bond clause that allowed a marked wolf to petition for formal release if the Alpha failed to uphold bond obligations for a continuous period exceeding thirty days.

Leland had been awake for thirty-seven days.

I added the poultice incident to the log. Noted the witnesses: Rowan, Gamma Farris, Delta Wren, Delta Cormac, the Healer. Recorded the exact words Leland had used. *Your scent on anything you touch disgusts me.*

Then I photographed each page with the old camera I'd found in the workshop's storage closet and sent the images through an encrypted message channel to the pack-law advocate I'd located in neutral territory.

Her name was Maren Cross. She'd handled three bond-severance cases in the past decade. Two had been successful.

She replied within an hour.

*If he refuses or destroys the papers, the refusal itself becomes a documented violation. You'll have legal standing for a formal petition to the Regional Pack Council. Keep every copy. Document every interaction.*

I saved her message. Filed the photographs in a separate folder. Put the physical copies back in the locked box beside the band mold I'd used five years ago—the one I'd carved my initials into on the underside, where no one would see.

I wasn't building this out of hope.

I was building it because if I was going to leave, I would leave through a door I opened myself. With paperwork that couldn't be shredded without legal consequence.

And if Leland tried to stop me—if he used Alpha tone, if he tore the papers, if he locked me in this pack with nothing but his contempt and his refusal—then I would have proof.

Proof that the bond he claimed was an error was one he'd chosen to abandon.

Proof that I had tried every legitimate channel before I did what I was increasingly certain I would have to do.

I locked the box. Slid it back beneath the workbench.

Then I picked up the file and went back to work on the mold, smoothing the rough edges until my hands stopped shaking.

That evening, I saw Sylvie in the dining hall.

She was standing beside Leland at the high table, close enough that their shoulders brushed. Her hand rested on his forearm. Light. Casual. Possessive.

I was at the far end of the hall, near the kitchens, picking up a meal tray from the Omega station. I'd stopped eating at the ranked tables two weeks ago. No one had commented.

Leland's wolf surfaced as Sylvie leaned closer, saying something I couldn't hear. His posture eased. The tension in his shoulders—tension I'd seen every time he was in a room with me—disappeared.

He turned his head and breathed in.

I watched his eyes half-close. Watched him draw her scent deep, the way a wolf does when it's found something it's been searching for.

My wolf pressed against the suppression. Not clawing this time. Just pressing. Steady. Insistent.

I looked away. Picked up my tray. Walked toward the corridor that led back to the east wing.

Behind me, I heard Sylvie laugh—soft, warm, the sound of a woman who knew exactly where she stood.

I didn't look back.

But my wolf kept pressing.

And for the first time in years, I felt something shift beneath the chemical cage.

Something that had been buried so long I'd forgotten it was there.

Something that was starting to wake up.