Chapter 12: The Woman in Grey

The Hollow was lit from below at midnight, with torches stuck in the ground between the black stones.

The inner circle was a smaller ring at the very top, no more than twenty yards across.

Garrick stood at its edge in a clean shirt over his bandages, with a rifle he had borrowed from the border pack.

"I'm coming in," he said.

"The note says alone."

"The note is a trap."

"I know it's a trap." I held up the lavender sachet. "I want to see who set it."

His jaw set.

"Rhiannon."

"Garrick, I order you to stay here."

He took a breath.

It was the first order I had given him that he hated, and I watched it land.

"If you hear me scream, you may disobey it," I said.

"I'll disobey it before that," he said.

I nearly smiled.

Then I walked up the last steps into the inner circle alone.

Seven people stood inside it.

The nearest was an old man in Iron's grey livery, with a thin, careful face and his hands knotted in front of him.

That was the Iron Alpha.

He did not look at me.

Behind him, four of Dorian's blue coats stood with rifles slung.

Dorian himself stood to one side, with his lip split and his borrowed coat too big in the shoulders.

He looked at me with open hatred.

And in the middle of the circle, with her back to me, stood a tall woman in a grey cloak.

I knew the cloak.

I knew the way she stood, with her weight on one hip and her head slightly tilted.

I had seen that stance in a painting that hung in my father's study my whole life.

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