Noah POV

Her voice comes through the bond with the particular clarity it carries when she's decided something is urgent and has stripped everything else away.

'Vark said Westmount Howl is going to belong to him.'

I go still.

For a full second I'm certain I've misheard her—that the link has distorted something, that the words have crossed in transmission and what she actually said was something else entirely, something that makes more sense than what I think I heard. ...