Chapter 38: Two Feeders

Daphne dropped a tray of cups on the third day, and the whole Pinecrest kitchen stopped.

She stood in the middle of the broken crockery with her hands out in front of her, looking at them.

"They're cold," she said. "They won't hold anything."

I caught her before she sat down on the glass.

She weighed less than she had a week ago.

Her lips had gone the colour of ash, and the scarf at her neck was damp.

"It goes out of me every few hours," she said, quite calmly. "I can feel it leave. Then it doesn't come back."

"Sit."

"I can't sit. I have forty pies."

"Daphne."

"It's what I'm for now." She tried to smile. "Hamish is very pleased with me."

Brigid came in from the yard with her stick and looked at the floor.

She looked at my sister.

Then she took off her coat.

"Good," she said. "You're still angry. Bring the bread knife."

"Gran..."

"A knotted girl has to hold a knife in front of nine Alphas and three packs," said Brigid.

"With her own blood on it. Hold the knife."

Daphne picked up the bread knife.

Her hand shook so hard the blade rang against the table edge.

"Again," Brigid said.

She did it again, every day for six days.

She did it at the kitchen table and in the back room.

By the third day she did it at the Keep, where Ewan cleared the long hall and gave her the empty end by the fire.

I watched her fail.

On the first day she could not close her fingers around the handle.

On the fourth she held it for a count of ten.

Then the knife fell, and she put her face in her hands and said she was going to be sick.

Nobody told her to stop.

Nobody did it for her.

That was my rule.

I said it again to Brigid and to Ewan and to the shaved-headed wolf, who had come to watch.

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