es in daylight, and that was true, and it was also a coward's excuse. I went home to my rooms ab

ad walked past for nine years were crusted white with salt at every joint, and when I ran my thumb along

s were e

ere nobody would look unless they were lying on the floor, she had scraped away the worst of the rust and packed the gap with something grey and waxy tha

the corrosion where it touched. The pipe above her pat

on the

till flat from sleep. He was nineteen and built like our father, broad through the shoulders, an

pecting

he morning inspecting a valve." He came down the steps.

ys a lot o

ands on her." Rowan gri

ow

eside me and looked at the pi

hat shouldn'

h it, and I caught his wrist. His skin was hot. Not warm from the climb, not warm fro

ands,"

about

hey st

put his hands behind his back, and he gave me the smi

d have seen me at training yesterday. Mag

that if you trip

s. "Isla's in the pack kitchen, by the way. She's been up since four maki

u tell

aused at the top of the stairs. "Alasdair. If som

e nine

ed along the corridor, and I sat on the cold floor with the grey w

m the same. She had been inside my plant for months, and she had done nothing except slow the rot down. She could have opened

n my coat and walked

had a pot on the stove and a wooden spoon in her hand, and her black hair was braided

" she

l st

to my hands, and I put them behind my back befo

do you

een wrong for longer than you've been alive. I know three wolves in this pack have failed to shift

father died in the sea.

to the water. He was fifty-one years old and he could not hold a pen. He did not drown because the tide took him, Alas

kitchen clock tick

't anyone

l, and then you would have been the one they took." She picked up the spoon again. "D

the pot. "Wh

he dose is small enough that it won't burn your wolf. I

same word Eilidh had used. "You

able and set a cup down b

e and one wolf at a time. I know who cast it. I have known since before you were born. And I have done nothing about it because I was paid to keep my mouth shut." She looked

or of the pack house banged open, and Rowan's voice came

Alpha's study. There's a man at the

closed aro

you go in there, or your hands will shake in front of the