Chapter 16: Terms, You Said

Wynn's POV

I walked down the path with the coat in my arms and stopped at his window.

He rolled it down and did not get out.

"They never opened it," I said. "Eleven years, and the tag's still on the sleeve."

"I know."

"It's Eli's size. It would have fit him at nine." My voice cracked on the number. "You guessed right."

"I asked the pack healer once, through the post. She wrote back a number."

I stared at him.

"You asked her," I said.

"In year three. She never knew who wanted it."

I had been so ready to be angry.

I had the speech all built in my head, and it fell down on the gravel between us.

"Why do you keep being kind?" I said. "Tell me honestly. Is it guilt?"

"Some."

"Is it pity?"

"No." He looked straight at me. "Ask me what it is."

"Torin."

"Ask."

"What is it?"

"I want you," he said.

"I wanted you at the gate, and every day since.

"It has nothing to do with your mother or the letters. I told them to put you back, and I've wanted you ever since."

The wind moved the porch light on its cord.

"You've spent two weeks waiting for the catch," he said. "There isn't one. That's the whole of it."

I put the coat in the back seat.

Then I opened his door.

"Inside," I said. "Be quiet. My brother's asleep."

He got out slowly and followed me in.

He stood in my hall in his black coat and looked at the stairs and the row of Eli's boots.

Then he looked at the crooked photograph of my mother on the wall.

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