London, when the cab spits me out by my townhouse, is grey and humid, the air smelling of diesel, toast, and river. My feet strike the pavement with purpose, but there’s a tremor beneath every step: exhaustion, awe, the shock of clocks resuming. I unlock the door, inhale the familiar scent of home—old books, ground coffee, pine soap.

But it smells wrong. Too clean. Too closed-in.

I drop my satchel by the door, kick off my shoes, and stand in the centre of the room. A shaft of city sunlight fingers the dust, catching my reflection in the glass. For a heartbeat, I look for Asdar’s shadow, but find only myself: fifty, lined, wild-haired, alive.

The silence presses in—not the mountain silence of wind and distant bells, but the London kind: traffic hum, a neighbor’s television, someone’s recycling bin scraping pavement. The house echoes differently. Everything feels smaller, harder-edged.

I move to the kitchen. Turn on the tap. London water tastes of metal and chlorine after weeks of spring water cold enough to ache your teeth.

Papers being signed beneath fluttering wolf banners. The sight surreal: digital tablets beside clay cups, Mrs H’s pen clicking sharp in the mountain stillness.

“You realize the only thing more persistent than tradition is a tenured academic with a grant,” Mrs H had said, voice dry, watching Hasna. “We’ll need daily check-ins with local security for at least a month.”

Hasna, already dialing her encrypted phone, sidelong smile playing: “I’d worry more about the press. Try keeping Reuters off a story entitled ‘CEO Sacrificed to Secret Wolf Cult.’ We’ll need creative euphemisms.”

The kettle whistles. I pour water over a teabag—PG Tips, mundane as breathing—and the ordinary magic of it nearly breaks me.

I carry the mug to the window. Grey rooftops, chimney pots, a pigeon picking at something on the neighbouring sill. No ridgelines. No kestrels. No dog roses blooming wild around ancient stones.

The car bumping down the rutted path, rain threatening on the horizon. That sharp mineral scent. I’d caught a last breath of resin and wild thyme, letting it wedge behind my ribs.

Tarmo’s voice filtering through my phone, strained by satellite lag, as a Romanian officer gestured toward the police tent: “She’s safe. She’s out. As far as we’re concerned, there’s no one to charge. Sometimes what happens in the mountains should stay in the mountains.”

The officer’s sigh of relief. “That’s wise. Still, we’ll file an incident report.”

Tarmo, voice dropping: “Write down that our gratitude is as eternal as the old stones. And please note: nobody here was ever a victim.”

My phone buzzes on the counter. Messages piling up—Sandi’s brusque efficiency, Bartek’s gentle worry, Karim’s warmth. I let them sit, unanswered.

I walk upstairs. My bedroom smells of old laundry and dust. The bed’s made—I must have done that before I left, a lifetime ago. The sheets are cold, impersonal. Nothing like wool and fur and the scent of woodsmoke woven into fabric.

I sit on the edge of the bed. Close my eyes.

Asdar waiting where morning sun bent through the cave entrance, lighting his hair with a lion’s shimmer. The wolf-tattoo leaping as he flexed his fingers.

“I thought if I let you go, I might lose the wolf too.”

My palm flat on his chest, his heart leaping beneath my hand. “You’ll never lose the wolf. I saw him before I saw you. Maybe I always will.”

His voice, rough with things he couldn’t say: “I will watch for you. Wherever you walk. Even in the place with rivers of stone and lights you cannot name.”

I open my eyes. London traffic growls below. Someone’s car alarm bleats. A siren wails past, Doppler-shifting into the distance.

Not wolf howls. Not sheep bells. Just the city’s endless, grinding noise.

I stand, restless, and wander back downstairs. Open the kitchen window to let air in—damp, urban, laced with exhaust fumes and someone’s curry takeaway.

Mrs H wrapping me in a surprisingly fierce hug: “Next time you get abducted, choose somewhere with better plumbing.”

Hasna in the front seat, radio already tuned to the news cycle: “Paris is two headlines behind. Zürich’s demanding a debrief. London just wants data and your safe return. How do you feel?”

Me, half-smiling, rain pattering the car window: “Like I’ve been living twenty centuries in one week. Like I’m finally old enough to know when myth deserves its secrets.”

I sit on the cold kitchen floor, knees to my chest. Let the city hum cradle my ears. Let the memories circle and settle.

For a long moment, I do nothing but breathe—processing the taste of freedom, the ghost-hand of Asdar’s promise, the wolf quietly coiling at the root of my spine.

I will answer the messages. Not yet. Not until I’m ready to thread my story into the world again.

Eventually, I stand. Draw my notebook from the satchel, set it by the window—still bound with the strip of red cloth Asdar tied around it.

Stories are not for keeping. They are for walking.

Outside, London sprawls: stubborn, grey, impatient, utterly unaware of the wolf that, even here, keeps vigil just beyond the edge of reason.

I.Ph.