Chapter 7: Dinner at Highgate

Highgate had three doors, and we walked in through the front one at noon on Saturday.

The Gathering Hall was a long room of black timber.

The Council's five chairs stood on a dais, and two hundred wolves lined the walls.

Hattie walked on my left with her chin up and her red braid freshly done.

Ansel walked a step behind my right shoulder, where a hound is supposed to walk.

I had asked him to.

"If you walk beside me, they'll see what you are to me," I'd said in the truck.

"I want them to see what they think you are."

He had looked at me for a long moment and said, "That's smart."

Now every head in the room turned.

Corbin stood at the foot of the dais in his gray cardigan, with his arms open.

"Dara," he said warmly. "Kiddo. You came."

"I said I would."

"Toivo!" he called, without looking away from me. "Come out, your daughter is here."

A door opened at the side of the hall, and my father came through it between two guards.

He had shaved.

Somebody had given him a clean shirt a size too big.

His hair was wet and combed flat.

He looked ten years older, and when he saw me he looked younger.

"Honey," he said.

I crossed the floor and hugged him hard.

His arms came around me, shaking.

"I didn't read the back page," he said into my hair. "I'm so sorry, I didn't read it."

"It's not your fault," I said, and I put his ring back on his finger.

I slid it on, and his big hand closed over mine for a second.

"Where did you get that?" he whispered.

"I took it from Lucas."