swung inward a hand's width, and the smell of Selin came out at me, chestnu

down against the wall. Whatever was on the

are," I said. "L

ith her jars and a mortar, a lamp turned down low. The window

ength of grey packing cord, the kind Ozan uses on the ferry crates. Her chestnut hair had com

you h

rists. "This is all. T

ted twice and wet where she had been working at it with he

g were y

d my wrists before I could see his face. He had a hood. He told me to sit and not speak, and then he made a

ing that did not

r the wrong woman is in the wing. He said it twice. The secon

her. He is trying to deliver a message. I had heard the message and come running, and whoever wanted that had lef

rey uniform and the

her. She said the Alpha had sent her because the wi

Cem has been at the Cou

e met my eyes again.

what you were told." I stood

th

ts. The plate had gone dark again. Someone had closed the door from the outside while I was sitting against it, and

inside," I sai

her legs had gone numb. "Then we are both

her. "You did not call the hotline on your own phone. You called it on a pack pho

ess, the kind that comes from sitting with wolves in p

called from the phone in my hand. It was in the

ine wa

All I did was speak into it." She folded her arms.

uld show up exactly the way that call had shown up. Someone had put a phone in Selin's room and opened the line to me and then stood in

tecting some

s. I have one room, one lock and one phone that is not mine. If I name a wolf tonight, I hav

not an

he answe

e snapped that cord. Selin was a healer with no warrior training, but she was still a wolf, and she

ugh to break this," I sai

, and for the first time her calm slipp

didn'

closed, and the sound carried down the stairwell, and we both l

ere would go after someone I love." She took the cord out of my hand and coiled it neatly. "And I beli

Cem comes back. If the record shows you in the Luna wing with me, after midnight, with the

beside the cot and sat down to

off and held it out to her. "Put this on. We go up the service stairs and out through th

ers. It hung past her hands, and the collar came

re thing before he left. I did not put it in my re

did he

hat his sister should not go wa

ers did not help, because the only wolf in a hood with a grey packing cord who knew Leyla's