As the kingdom burned, Cappella slept next to the boy who was her wolf, waking up every so often to check on him. He did not stir. She knew he lived from the slow rise and fall of his chest.

Her mother didn’t come home during the night. She’d said she was gathering supplies, but Cappella didn’t believe it. They had plenty in their tree. Food, water, bandages, and even candles they’d made from beeswax. Her mother was inspecting whatever the source of smoke was. Something terrible was happening.

Despite the lie her mother told, despite the anxiety she felt, Cappella was glad to be alone with the wolf. She’d always known they were bound. Some part of her must have perceived he was more than a wolf, that they could be more to each other. This was not something she wanted to talk about with her mother. It never went well. When Cappella first had begun to menstruate, she’d asked her mother the purpose of this uncomfortable, messy thing.

“It shows that your body is ready to have children,” her mother had said.

“Do you bleed too?”

“No.” Her face took on a pained expression that ended the discussion. At first, Cappella thought perhaps a mother stopped bleeding after she had a child. That a child was the cure. But then she recalled that the woodsman’s wife had had two children.

The woodsman. Now she understood what had happened. Her wolf was his son. His parents had died. He’d gone into the kingdom afterward and only just returned. Her mother had known this all along. She’d known and hadn’t told her; she hadn’t let Cappella try to find him. She didn’t want Cappella to have this wolf, this boy. She wanted to keep her hidden away in their tree. For how long? Until Cappella’s hair had turned all the way white?

She studied the boy who lay beside her. She would have known that shaggy hair anywhere. He’d always intrigued her, always darted off when he came near. Talking with him would have been against the rules, and Cappella had tried to be a good daughter.

Cappella had accepted her mother’s rules, but she hated them. She needed other people. She wanted others. Someone to listen to the music of the trees with. Someone to walk with to the edge of the woods, where the leaves were thin enough that they could hold hands and count stars. She wanted to love someone, and she wanted to feel loved in return. Day after day for years, she’d played that yearning into her pipe. It was in every song she ever played with the trees. The wish for love.

Did her mother want love too? Cappella would never ask. Her mother would never say. It would become one more thing she and her mother did not—could not—talk about.

When day broke, Cappella smoothed the boy’s hair. It was softer than his wolf fur, with edges that curled around her fingertips. She blotted the blood from his mouth and then saw to his fingertips. His nails were shredded, and it hurt to look at them. She poured clean water over them, hoping to dislodge anything that might prevent them from healing. Then she wrapped them gently in bandages woven of moss. As she did, his eyelids fluttered. Opened. She watched his face as he took her in: fear, then relief.

“Where are we?” His voice was exactly as she’d imagined it would be, sweet and rough.

“This is where I live,” she said.

He sat, holding the red cloak around his waist. He touched the cloth as though it was a comfort to him.

“Careful,” she said. “You’re hurt.”

He glanced at his fingertips. “It’s not so bad.”

“You’re the wolf,” she said. “My wolf.”

His face reddened and he looked into his lap. “I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone. And you told me your mother wouldn’t let you talk with people. I didn’t think we had a choice. And I didn’t want you to be scared of me.”

When she was younger, she might have been afraid. Watching him shift from his wolf form to his human one had been shocking, perhaps in part because of her great surprise at seeing him and her horror at his injuries. There was no denying that the transformation itself had been astonishing to witness; she could hear his bones rearrange themselves and watch fur sink into his skin. But she didn’t fear it. She didn’t fear him. She couldn’t. Not ever.

She felt nothing but tenderness. She wanted to put her palm to his cheek. To tell him she was so glad he was back. That she’d missed him.

“Are you hungry?”

He nodded.

She made a bowl of dried berries and nuts, along with some bread that had been cooked over the fire. He put a berry into his mouth and chewed slowly.

“I’m sorry I don’t have anything softer. Does it hurt?”

He nodded.

“Eat all the berries. We can gather more. I’m afraid they won’t last you very long.”

He ate two more. “I’ve missed these.”

It had always been so easy to talk to him when he was a wolf. Words flowed like notes from her pipe. Whatever she thought, she’d said. She edged away from him until her back was against the bark of the tree. There was the solidity she needed.

He gestured at the cloak across his lap. “I bought this for you. It used to be … it used to be cleaner.”

She laughed. “You mean it didn’t come with moth holes and a sort of rattish odor?”

He laughed too. “It’s seen some things.”

She touched the edge of it. “I love it.”

“I’ve held on to it for a long time.”

She thought he might say more. But he didn’t. He finished the berries, and they sat in silence.

He wrapped the cloak around his waist and moved toward the opening, peering out. “It’s smoky out there.”

“You’re not leaving, are you?” She felt a sense of panic, though she didn’t want to show it. “You should rest. Heal. And my mother is bringing herbs that will lessen the pain—”

“I have to,” he said. “My sister.”

“You should at least finish the berries and a full skin of water.” She would have done anything to keep him with her. A thought struck, one that made her blush. “You haven’t any clothes.”

He grinned, and it was somehow exactly the expression it was when he was in his wolf form: mischievous, sweet, and wonderful. “That’s where it’s convenient that I can travel as a wolf. I need to find my sister. It’s urgent.”

“Is she in danger?”

He nodded.

“Will you be back?”

“I don’t know,” he said. “I want to be. I’ll try.”

They were both silent. The smell of smoke was thick, and the music of the forest sounded strained, troubled.

He stood in the opening of the tree, his form darkened by the daylight behind him. “I missed you, Cappella. Sometimes I could hear your music from where I was. Or at least I thought I could.”

She didn’t need to ask whether he’d liked it. She knew he had. He always had. He used to tip his snout to the air when she played, tongue lolling. Or sometimes he’d roll over on his back, paws folded on his chest. But she wanted to hear him say that he’d liked it. That he’d thought of her as often as she’d thought of him.

Her heart ached. “Wait—I still don’t know your name.”

He looked at her with his gray-and-black eyes. “Hans. My name is Hans.”

And then he was the wolf again, and he was leaving, limping on his injured paws, and Cappella felt as though an arrow had been blasted through her chest.

A minute passed.

Hans had traveled far enough away that Cappella could no longer hear him. The woods played soft music, as if they knew her heart needed something tender to bind it.

What do you want? she felt them ask her. What do you want?

She knew her answer the moment she felt the question take shape. She wrapped the cloak around her shoulders, flipped up the hood, and then she stepped out of her tree, pipe in hand. She knew where he’d lived, once upon a time, so she set out in that direction.

He was too fast for her to catch up. When she arrived at the cottage, the door was closed. He had already gone inside. She looked in the window. He was there, dressed now, embracing a girl with a braid of golden hair that ran all the way down her back. Their shoulders shook, and she knew they wept, and she felt like an intruder. They were a family. She was not part of it.

She stepped away from the window, mortified at the thought she’d be seen. Then, not far away, she heard voices, and through the smoky air, she smelled food being cooked. Was this the danger Hans had spoken of? She turned, intending to run home and hide.

She nearly crashed into her mother.

“Oh, thank goodness,” Esme said. “I returned home, and you were gone. I was terrified something had happened to you.”

“I’m fine. But what’s going on? Why are people here? Why is the air so full of ash?”

Her mother carried a bag that looked full to the brim. “I’ll tell you on the way.”

“On the way? Are we leaving?”

Her mother, she knew now, was a fugitive.

“Nothing like that.”

Her mother walked so fast Cappella had to trot to keep up. They turned toward the clearing, keeping out of sight. As they observed the people gathered there, her mother whispered, “There’s been some sort of battle. There’s a group of three dozen or so refugees, some wounded. There are also bodies. And one of the survivors—” She paused. “I believe one is your cousin Ursula. She moves just as my sister did. Even their voices sound the same. Whatever happened in the kingdom, whatever has created all of that smoke, was terrible.”

“I thought you said what happens in the kingdom has nothing to do with us.”

Her mother closed her eyes. “I know what I said. I was wrong. These people have run from the kingdom, as I once did. One is our kin. They all need our help.”

“What if they want to hurt us?”

“It’s a possibility,” her mother allowed. “But it never works to stand aside and hope the hand of power passes by. In the end, it finds us all unless we resist. And sometimes it finds us even then.”

Something sparked inside Cappella. “How do you know this? And why have you never said such things to me before?”

“Hush, child.” Esme stepped toward the clearing.

“No!” Cappella hissed.

Her mother took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “I didn’t tell you because there were things that I didn’t want you to know. Didn’t want you to have to know. I wanted your life to be joy and music in the woods. I wanted you to know nothing but happiness.”

Cappella believed her mother thought this was the way to happiness. But it had been a path to loneliness. It had been a lie. She hadn’t known her family. She’d missed out on the fullness of friendship with Hans that would have been possible. Maybe even his sister too. If her life had been happy, it was incomplete, a fraud, a lie.

“All right.” Cappella would do what she could to help for now. But later? She did not yet know what she would do.

But she wanted more than this.