Chapter 21: The Moon Stone

The high meadow was white with frost, and the Moon Stone stood in the middle of it.

It was a single tall slab of pale rock, and it was humming.

I felt the hum in my teeth before I saw it.

The pack stopped at the tree line, two hundred people holding lanterns, and let us go on alone.

Hester led.

Then Clara, with her cane in one hand and my mother's arm under the other.

Then Rowan, walking so close behind me that I could hear her breathe.

My father came last.

I had told him to.

He walked with his head down and his right hand curled shut.

He kept a few steps behind us the whole way up.

At the foot of the Stone, Hester stopped and turned.

In her palms lay two silver chains.

One was dull and grey, the one she had kept in a dish.

The other was still faintly bright, the one that had lain on the Gathering Hall floor.

"The bargain has to be whole to be broken," she said. "The chains go on. Both of you."

Clara's face changed.

"No," my mother said at once.

"Only for the asking," Hester said. "The bargain has to be on you when you answer. If it isn't, she has nothing to unmake."

"It'll hurt," my mother said.

"Yes."

"Brynn," Clara said. "You don't have to."

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