wolves in gray cloaks and me, riding

te nose, and I decided I loved her almost immediately, because she did not mind that I rode like a sack of wet laundry. Ed

lds of my scarf. They were weaker tha

near the Alpha. Not in front of the men. Whatever you are, whatever Bram thinks you are,

ask to be

o be it." She grinned.

f ten stood at a gate and stared at the Alpha's silver pin with wide, hungry eyes. In another, a man in a collar of iron, the kind that clamps around the neck, carried water for a house

ves who cannot shift to a full form. The Crown calls it ord

y n

hers, and the Queen holds all their land in her

day when we rea

ith a broken rail. The wolves slowed. A group of villagers stood on the near bank, shout

k! W

aid. "He went through the ice.

e, a thin sheet of ice lay across the water, and in the center of it was a hole. A s

ing. I remember sliding

ram shoute

freezing and moving. In the sea I had been born to this. But I was

t both hands flat to th

ispered in my ear.

ow. D

ver an

old, curved under the broken ice and lifted. For one long second I held a whole child in a column of water, drippin

vomited river water

scooped him

reath through a throat that did not seem to belong to me. The sky spun. Somebody was shouting my name. Hands hauled me upright

ing, very close. "Breat

other held my elbow. It was the first time he had touched me since the pantry, and th

when I could hear him

what

hundred years. It belongs to the old sea queens." His voice was low, almost won

stopped talking. Villagers stoo

a thief," Bra

d you

my back, and he seemed to realize it at the same time I did. He took it away. "But you pulled a child

ne wo

said. "They

ers. It smelled of pine and smoke. I was too tired to argue. T

moment I hear

ram's head jerked up. His whole body changed, in an instant, fro

outed. "Every

was long and black, and where it hit the rock

. His voice had g

s alread