on the bed for a while

I thought about it my stomach turned over. I had agreed to a season of pretending. Nobody ha

the two dresses and the spare shirt and hung them in the wardrobe. I put the hairbrush and the toothbrush on the dresser and set my boots in t

the suitcase an

side, and the lining had come loose in one corner years ago. My mother had given it to me when I lef

t loose anymore. It had been sewn shut. Small, careful stitches, dark thread

jacket pocket and cut t

yellow at the edges, and the fold lines were worn white, as if someone had opened it an

ri

twelve years. She had died in the spring, in her own bed, with her hand in mine and the window open, and after t

pened th

ther was not a woma

ise made before you were born, and it was made for you and not by you, and I signed it. Do not trust the Council. Do not tru

times. Then I

e pages," I said out loud. My voice

date, no signature, just my mother's handwriting

and felt the corner of it through the cloth. My mother had given me that envelope on her deathbed and told me not to open it unt

cket, next to the envelope, and I

a knock

m through the wood, that faint clean smell of dust and

"I need to talk to yo

hands at his sides and his face set. He had not shaved.

in," I

glass, and he did not look at the bed or the suitcase or

what the pact re

d me fo

iya arrives. If she certifies it, the Council has less grounds to interfere. If s

it before

and with hands and words, and when it's done, the pack will smell whether it took. If it took real, the moon judges it true, and

ew about the paragraph. Y

," I said slowly, "and

I want us both to s

not an

ut a true bond. It's in the old ceremony. Yusuf knows how. It's not a lie exactly, it's a performance, and the p

and steady and he was not saying s

performance

true and we deal with t

"You won't even look

a tightening around his mouth, and

es, and Yusuf's book, and the way the old man had closed it against his

. "Your father killed a Luna to keep the wate

ght moved on the wall behind him, and the highw

not my fath

the door, and he stopped w

m. And if he asks you to drink with him tonight, tell

your G

al said.

room with my mother's letter in my pocket and four days in my head, and from somewhere

me down and meet t

as D