Chapter 7: The Hound

"Take your hand out of your pocket," Rosalind said.

Pippa did, slowly, and held it up with the fingers spread.

"This? It's my family's seal. My father gave it to me when I was sixteen." She smiled. "Half of Ironwood wears one."

"Then half of Ironwood opened that valve," Perrin said.

"I wasn't even here five months ago, Perrin."

"I didn't say it was you."

Rosalind kept her eyes on Pippa's face. "You said it first."

For a moment nobody moved.

Then Pippa laughed softly and picked up her basket.

"I think you should rest," she said. "Please. You're upset."

She tucked the basket under her arm. "Dorian will want to hear this, and I'll tell him myself."

She walked out into the snow, and she did not hurry.

By sundown the whole pack knew.

Dorian called them to the Gathering Hall for the second time that day.

Three hundred wolves came, and the ones who had followed Rosalind to the mill stood at the back by the door.

He did not sit at the head of the table.

He stood beside it with his hands braced on the wood and a muscle jumping in his jaw.

Pippa stood beside him, and her eyes were red again.

"Perrin Gascoyne," Dorian said. "You say you found a mark."

"I did, Alpha."

"Show me."

Perrin laid the charcoal rubbing on the table.

A small head with two pricked ears and a long muzzle came up out of the black.

The left ear had a notch in it, a tiny chip.

Dorian looked at it for a long time.

"It's a hound," he said.

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