Chapter 19: Not Dead

The Blood Moon was a day away, and the Keep was holding its breath.

Stewards ran laundry up the back stairs, and the cook had been baking since four in the morning.

Out on the lawn above the lake, men were setting stakes in the grass for nine packs' torches.

I found Elias alone in the east tower, at a window, with a folded paper in his hand.

"You're not supposed to be in here," he said, without turning.

"Nobody told me."

"My father's old room. I haven't opened it in years."

I came up beside him.

The paper was brown with age, and the writing on it was a steward's neat hand.

"What is it?" I asked.

"The Crown's note on the fifth infant.

My father kept it."

He held it out, and I read it.

It said that the Garrow Alpha had written to the Crown to say his daughter had gone scentless.

It said no test had been made, that no bond can catch on a scentless wolf, and that the file was closed.

The ink had faded.

It was dated the summer after the Spring Run.

"He wrote to the Crown himself," I said.

"And the Crown took his word.

Nobody came to test you, because nobody ever tests a wolf with no scent."

I looked at the last word at the bottom of the page.

"Closed."

"That's what a scentless wolf is to the Crown. A dead end.

No scent, no bond, no use."

His voice was very even.

"My father told me when I was twenty-five.

He said I could stop waiting for my mate. The fifth girl had been found, and there was nothing there to find.

He said she was as good as dead."

I put the paper down on the sill.

"You believed him."

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