POV: Thalia
The coalition calls require one version of me and the pack requires another, and neither version gets to know the other exists until I close the door between them.
At eight, I brief Chen on the leadership vote — his support is confirmed but his questions are precise, and precise questions require precise answers that do not reveal how thin the margin is.
"Dual authority is documented and filed." I deliver the framework through the secure line.
"Dravec will argue accommodation." Chen's voice carries the caution of an ally weighing cost.
"Dravec will argue whatever serves his filing." I redirect toward the procedural ground.
"Your response at the summit needs to preempt that framing." He pushes for the counter.
"The response is ready — structural evolution, not emergency accommodation." I confirm the language.
"Make sure Morrison hears it in those exact words before the session." He closes with instruction.
"Morrison will receive the brief by end of day." I make the note and end the call.
At nine-fifteen, I walk from the office to the residential wing and become a different leader.
Jenna finds me in the corridor — the same Jenna whose thermos hand tightened during Luna's projection. Her face carries the wariness of a wolf who felt an emotion enter her body uninvited.
"Luna, I need to ask you directly." She stops me with the formality of a pack member exercising.
"Ask." I give her the full attention the question deserves without rushing toward the answer.
"Is your daughter able to make me feel things against my will?" She holds my gaze without blinking.
"Luna's projection was involuntary — she did not choose to send it." I name the mechanism.
"That does not answer my question." Jenna presses with the directness I trained into my wolves.
"The ability exists." I do not soften the fact. "The control is developing alongside it."
"Developing means it is not yet reliable." She crosses her arms, the fear visible beneath.
"Developing means she is still young and learning." I hold firm without dismissing her.
"Your fear is reasonable — you felt an intrusion you did not consent to." I validate the experience.
"What I am asking is that you hold fear and context simultaneously." I meet her eyes.
"The context is a child, not a weapon." I deliver it and let the silence carry the distinction.
Jenna holds my gaze for a beat. The fear does not leave her face but the rigidity loosens.
"I will hold both." She nods once and steps aside to let me continue down the corridor.
Three more conversations follow — Marcus at the training facility, a kitchen staffer named Dove, and a young wolf who asks whether Luna can read his thoughts during lessons.
Each conversation requires the same architecture: acknowledge the fear, refuse to let it become the conclusion, redirect toward the facts, and leave the person feeling heard without feeling right to be afraid.
By noon, both domains have received the version of me they require, and neither has seen the seam.
Rosalie arrives at twelve-thirty with a plate of food I did not request and the expression of a woman who has been watching the seam for hours.
"Eat." She sets the plate on my desk beside the coalition files and sits in the chair across.
"I ate this morning." I do not look up from the Morrison brief I am finalizing for Chen.
"You ate a granola bar at six and called it breakfast." She pushes the plate closer.
"A granola bar constitutes breakfast in a crisis week." I continue writing without conceding.
"A granola bar constitutes denial dressed as efficiency." She leans back and crosses her arms.
"Rosalie." I set the pen down because her tone has shifted from casual to deliberate.
"Thalia." She mirrors my name with the same weight I placed on hers across the desk between us.
"Are you actually okay?" She delivers it without the padding most people attach to the words.
"I am managing." I reach for the pen again because the Morrison brief has a deadline.
"That is not what I asked." She does not move or break eye contact or allow the redirect.
The pen stops halfway to the paper. I hold it suspended between the coalition work and the question Rosalie placed on the desk with the same directness she places everything — without apology or permission.
"No." I set the pen down and sit back in my chair with the weight of the honest answer.
"Tell me." She unfolds her arms and leans forward with the full attention of a best friend.
"I am running coalition defense against a man who wants my husband's position." I begin.
"While convincing my own pack that my daughter is not a threat." I continue steadily.
"While the full moon approaches and my youngest son's abilities remain unclassified." I add.
"While two vampires I confronted at a carnival have not been accounted for." I finish the list.
"And I have been managing all of it in separate rooms that do not touch." I press my palms flat.
"Because if any of those rooms sees the pressure from the others, confidence collapses." I hold.
"That is managing." Rosalie watches my face with steady focus. "What is underneath it?"
"Exhaustion." I let the word arrive without performing it. "And the fear that I am not enough."
"Not enough for which part?" She tilts her head with the precision of someone who knows.
"All of them simultaneously." I hold her gaze. "Any one of them alone, I can carry."
"All of them at once, with the seam holding by discipline alone —" I pause and breathe.
"I am afraid the seam will tear before the summit." I finish, and the honesty costs me visibly.
"The seam is not holding by discipline alone." Rosalie reaches across the desk toward my hand.
"It is holding because you have people in every room." She grips my fingers with steady warmth.
"Kieran in the coalition room, Caroline in the healer room, me in this one." She squeezes once.
"You do not have to be enough for all of them." She holds my eyes. "You have to let us help."
The security alert cuts through the room before I can answer — a sharp double-tone from the compound's perimeter system that overrides every conversation in the building.
I release Rosalie's hand and pull the tablet toward me. The alert carries a classification I have not seen in three years — unrecognized biological signature at the eastern boundary.
Not Dravec's representative. Not any wolf in the coalition database. Not a scent profile that matches a single entry in Silvermoon's territorial records.
An unknown wolf at the eastern perimeter, just before the full moon and just before the summit, arriving at the one boundary where the cameras have been dark since Tuesday.