Chapter 17: Cold Smoke in Public

The wolf walked up the porch steps and lay down in front of me.

Nobody on the lawn said a word.

He shook once, and the fur ran back into his skin.

Cassian knelt on the boards in the rags of his shirt.

His shoulder was cut open to the bone.

He didn't look at it.

He put his forehead against my knee and stayed there for a moment.

"Five hours," he said into the quilt on my lap.

"Don't," I said. "Do what you came out here to do."

He stood.

Mom handed him a flannel shirt from the line, and he put it on over the blood.

Then he turned to the court.

The lords he'd put down were getting to their feet, slowly.

The Regent stood among them, white at the mouth, with the iron crown crooked on his head.

"This is over," the Regent said. "The beast has been put out. Take the woman and the mortals."

"It is not over," said Cassian.

He took the black page out of his pocket.

He held it up for every lord on that lawn to see.

"I'm going to read you something," he said. "I have read it every night for seven years. I know it by heart."

He read it aloud, flat and clear.

"I, Linnet, give this testimony against Cassian Dray, and ask that he be sentenced."

Nobody breathed.

"I believed it," he said. "I was told it was hers. I was told the Light wrote it down as she spoke it."

"It was," said the Regent. "The Light does not forge."

"The Light writes in gold. This is black."

He turned the page over and pointed to the corner.

"And this is the press of a clerk of seals. The small ring, here, with the notch in the rim."

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