Chapter 7: Rue

I pulled my hand out of hers.

"You knew," I said. "For eight years you knew."

"I knew there was silver in a wall," Tilda said. "I didn't know what it would do to you. Not for certain."

"Did you tell anyone?"

"I told your father."

The words sat there on the steps between us.

"The same day," she said. "I showed him my fingers."

"What did he say?"

"He said his mate was raising his daughter, and I should keep to my herbs."

I looked out at the lake.

Somewhere in the house, a clock chimed eleven.

Bastian spoke for the first time.

"Silver doesn't kill a wolf that hasn't come up yet," he said slowly. "It just keeps her down. Month after month. Until the body stops trying."

"Can she come back?" I asked.

"I don't know."

He said it plainly.

It was the second time he'd told me he didn't know something.

It helped more than any promise could have.

"But I know where we start," he said. "Out from under a roof."

That night the three of us walked up behind the hall to a clearing on the ridge.

Tilda sat on a stump with a blanket around her shoulders.

The sky was clear and full of stars.

Only a thin slice of moon was up, low over the trees.

"Take your shoes off," Tilda said. "Stand on the ground."

I took them off.

The grass was cold and wet.

"Don't try to shift," Bastian said. "Don't try anything. Just stand there and be out in it."

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