Chapter 5: Guest, Not a Rescue

Greywater's hall was a long timber building with a stove at each end and forty people eating supper at one table.

All forty stopped chewing when Torin walked me in.

Nobody said Luna, and nobody said Queen.

They only looked, and then a boy of about six took a very loud bite of bread to cover it.

"Everybody eat," Torin said.

They ate.

The Healer put me in a chair by the near stove and set a bowl of soup in front of me.

"Eat that. All of it."

"I'm not hungry."

"I didn't ask if you were hungry."

I ate three spoonfuls and she nodded and went to bully the cook.

The cook was a broad woman who had clearly been bullied before and did not mind.

I heard them arguing about salt, and the sound of it was so ordinary I had to look at my hands.

The boy from the end of the table came and stood in front of me.

"Are you the one who made the King kneel?" he asked.

"He didn't kneel," I said.

"Oh." He thought about it. "Maybe next time."

"Bed," Torin said from across the room.

"I'm going."

He went, and he looked back twice.

Later, in the little room at the top of the stairs, the Healer changed my dressings without comment and then sat on the edge of the bed.

"Your wolf," she said.

"She won't come."

"How long?"

"Since the night. I can feel where she is, and she won't answer."

"Pain smothers a wolf for a few hours. A few days at the outside."

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