Chapter 1 — THE DOGS OF BLACKMOON CITY AREN'T RIGHT (1)

If anyone ever tells you there's a blood type that makes a hundred grown werewolves line up like kindergartners at snack time, fighting over who gets to be useful — don't believe them.

Unless you're Luna Hayes, and it's your first day at Blackmoon University, and you're watching it happen in real time, in the middle of the campus gate, while three men who look like they got cast as mob-movie extras argue over her suitcase.

8:00 AM. Luna is dragging two suitcases — because she owns everything she owns, and it fits in exactly two suitcases — when they appear out of nowhere. All of them are about six-foot-three. All of them are in suits that cost more than her entire wardrobe. All of them bend down at precisely the same moment to grab her luggage.

"I've got it, miss."

"Move. I was here first."

"You were both late. I'm the biggest — I should shoulder the most responsibility."

Luna hugs her backpack and watches three grown men stage a custody battle over a carry-on. The largest one starts rolling up his sleeves, like this is about to get physical, and honestly, she's not sure it isn't.

She smiles. Small, polite, practiced — the smile she's been wearing since she was nine and learned that being nice costs nothing and buys everything.

All three men freeze mid-motion, like someone hit pause on the universe. They snap upright, chests out, shoulders back, the way people do at military inspections.

Luna's internal commentary scrolls past: Did everyone in this city lose a bet with their gym?

"Thanks, guys. Appreciate it." She picks up her own bag, smooth, and walks between them. Behind her, a chorus of tiny, suppressed inhales — the sound of three very hungry dogs who have just been handed a steak and are choosing, with visible difficulty, not to eat it.

She files it away under: this city is friendly. Aggressively, suspiciously friendly. More on this as events develop.

By 8:15, she's catalogued three more items. The barista at the campus coffee cart knows her order before she says it — "Luna, right? Vanilla latte, no sugar, oat milk. Coming right up." She has never met this man in her life. The security guard at the east gate salutes her. An actual salute. And a black lab mix trots past the fountain, stops dead in the middle of the path, sits down, and stares at her with unsettling amber eyes for a full ten seconds before trotting on.

Luna adds a note: either this city has a very aggressive welcome committee, or I've been selected for something, or everyone here is extremely online.

9:00 AM. Registration. The department head is a gray-haired man with a kind face and the posture of someone who has eaten exactly one vegetable in the last decade. He sees her, and his sentence dies in his throat. His eyes go red — actually red, the kind of red that makes you check if he needs medical attention. Then he takes her hand in both of his, trembling, and presses a stack of financial aid forms and a thick wad of cafeteria vouchers into her palm. His voice cracks.

"Child. Blackmoon City welcomes you. Eat. Eat well. Don't be shy."

Luna looks at the vouchers. There are enough for four years. There are enough for four years and a small wedding.

"Thank you, Professor."

"No — no, thank you." He walks away, dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief, with the aura of a man who has just witnessed a miracle.

Luna updates her file: Pretty sure the dean thinks I'm his long-lost daughter. Slightly concerned about what that says about his actual daughter.

11:00 AM. Campus clinic. The nurse insists on a "free, comprehensive, welcome-to-college" physical, announces that Luna is disgustingly healthy, and then seals her records inside a brown paper envelope like it's a state secret. As Luna is leaving, she catches the nurse giving her a stiff, formal nod at her back. All ceremony, chin down, spine straight. In an American university clinic.

Okay. Deep breaths. Some cities are just like this.

Luna tries to peek at the brown envelope in the bathroom stall. She has it open a single centimeter — one single centimeter — when the nurse's voice materializes on the other side of the stall door: "Miss Hayes. That is your file. I would strongly recommend against opening it. For your own peace of mind."

Luna snaps the envelope shut and pockets it. "Peace of mind," she repeats. "Right. Because a sealed mystery file is famously calming."

The nurse smiles the smile of a woman who knows exactly what's in the envelope. Luna smiles back and files another note: the nice here is weird. The weird here is organized.

12:30 PM. Library. Luna picks a window seat and puts her head down, planning a quick, quiet nap. Five minutes of peace, tops. The guy at the next table — headphones, hoodie, the uniform of the deeply anxious — stands up, walks away, stops, turns around, walks back, sets an unopened iced coffee on the corner of her table, nods once, very solemnly, and then speed-walks out of the room.

"P-please accept this—" his voice drifts back, barely audible.

Ten minutes later, Luna finds him across six rows of shelves, watching her. The intensity is off the charts. It's part stalker, part pilgrim, part kid who just saw his favorite streamer in person.

Luna's commentary upgrades from a file to a rolling ticker: This city is friendly. "Friendly" is doing a lot of heavy lifting here.

1:00 PM. The phone call.

Mrs. Hayes, her foster mother, in the same voice she uses for utility bills: "Luna. Remember, you are a guest in that family. Don't cause trouble. Don't embarrass us. The tuition is borrowed — you will pay it back."

"Mm." Luna hangs up. Scrolls to the one photo on her phone — the family portrait she's not in — locks the screen, and smiles her professional smile at the stack of meal vouchers.

She learned this a long time ago, in a string of foster homes that all promised the same thing: nobody waits at the door for you. So you're polite to everyone. And immune to everyone. Same coin, two sides.

5:00 PM. The truck.

Luna walks out of the gate, iced coffee in hand, when a delivery truck comes roaring down the hill. Horn screaming, people scattering, someone's coffee going airborne. Luna is half a beat slow — she's mid-rant, mentally, about how even the trucks in this city have main-character energy — when an arm hooks around her waist and hauls her clean off the pavement.