Chapter 17: Paper and Skin

Forty Redfall wolves stood shoulder to shoulder around me, close enough that I could smell their sweat.

On the far side of them, Darian had started to move.

"Darian," I said. "Wait."

He stopped with one boot off the ground.

I could see his face between two broad backs, and the amber had already begun to creep into his eyes.

"Let me do this one," I said.

"Cal..."

"You said you'd stand where I stand. Stand there."

His jaw moved.

He put his foot down.

The oldest elder rose from the log bench.

"The accused is named under guest law," he said. "A human may not speak at council. That is the law, and I will keep it."

Dunstan let out a soft breath of satisfaction.

"However." The elder lifted one finger. "No law forbids an elder to ask a question. Nor a person to answer it, if asked."

He looked at me over the heads of the Redfall wolves.

"Did you poison Joan Carraway?"

"No," I said.

My voice carried farther than I expected.

"I have been poisoned by the same thing, in a smaller dose. I've had hives for a week. Anyone in this valley can see my hands."

I held them up in the torchlight, and they were pink and peeling, and a murmur rose behind me.

"Hives from a girl's cheap hand cream," Dunstan said, with a patient laugh. "Surely."

"Delaney," I said.

She had not moved from the middle of the ring.

She put a hand into the folds of her white dress and pulled out a small blue bottle.

She walked straight through the Redfall circle.

The wolves let her through, because they did not know how to stop the Alpha's daughter.

She put the bottle in my hand.

"It's the bridal oil," she said, loudly enough for the front rows. "The one my father had made. I've worn it every day for ten days."

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