Chapter 11: Osmund Speaks

I read my own signature.

It was mine.

The loops of the L, the flat-topped A.

But the sentence over it wasn't in any ink I'd ever seen.

Saskia held the page up in both hands for the hall.

"There," she said, with real sorrow.

"She consented."

"She has always consented."

"Linnea, my dear, I understand that you're angry, but you can't unsay a thing you've signed."

Somebody started to cry in the benches.

Somebody else said, "So it's true."

Torin was swaying on his feet, with his eyes on the page.

I felt my wolf turn her head in my chest.

Wait, she said.

For what?

Read the book again.

I looked down at the black ledger on the table, at the neat blue lines of the keeper's own handwriting.

I put my finger on the sentence and read it aloud.

"*Consent of the lender's Alpha, in lieu of her own, given and signed.*"

The hall quieted.

"Elder," I said. "What does 'in lieu of her own' mean?"

The old man cleared his throat.

"It means instead of," he said slowly.

"Instead of what?"

"Her own consent. The lender's. She didn't give it."

"So who wrote that line?"

"The keeper."

"Saskia Rooke wrote in the book, on my wedding night, that I hadn't consented." I turned.

"And now she's holding a paper that says I did."

The hall was so quiet I could hear the lamps hiss.

"Which one is the lie, Saskia?"

Saskia opened her mouth.

For the first time in two years, nothing smooth came out of it.

"The ledger was written in haste," she said. "A clerical error."

"Which clerical error?" the elder said, and his voice had changed.

"The paper is dated the same day."

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