Isaac doesn't know what a direwolf is, doesn't even know really what a wolf is supposed to look like. He rubs his other hand over his face, while his left hand is buried in all that fur, as if he can't stop petting him. "We don't have wolves where I come from," he says. "Dad says there aren't, but Mom says there's howling in the woods."

Secretly, he believes his Mom, but he'd never tell his Dad that. He gets scary when he yells and Isaac doesn't want to be yelled at.