Marlowe
I sat on the edge of the bunk in King's quarters that night, staring at nothing, the cold dread from the garage still sitting heavy in my chest.
"Explain it to me properly," I said, once he'd joined me. "The ceremony. What actually happens."
"Full club gathers. Witnessed, formal, no exceptions." He said it carefully, watching my face for how much of this I could actually absorb right now. "The prospect's called forward, and the shift is triggered — deliberately, ceremonially. First shift is supposed to be a rite, not something you can fake or delay. Everybody watches. Everybody confirms the wolf's real."
"And if nothing happens?"
"Then everybody in that yard learns you're not what you've been pretending to be." He didn't soften it, and I was grateful, in some exhausted way, th
