Chapter 22: The Hall Votes

By the next March, Hamish had driven the two hours to Briar Mill every Friday for eleven months.

He fixed Dot's back gate, learned to make French toast, and slept on the couch every night I told him to.

I had told him to most of them.

On the seventh, the night of the new moon, we drove to Cedar Ridge together.

Finlay rode in the back seat with Dot, and we all went to hear what the council would say.

The hall was full.

Twelve elders sat on the bench, and Hamish stood alone in front of them in a plain gray shirt.

I sat in the front row with Finlay on my lap, and Linnea slipped in beside me and took my hand.

She had moved into a cottage at the edge of the lands, with a garden, and her own front door.

She looked ten years younger.

"Alpha," the eldest elder said. "A year ago this council set a sentence on you. Has the Alpha anything to report?"

"No," Hamish said. "Ask the pack."

They asked.

For an hour wardens and farmers and old women stood and told the hall what he had done.

He had opened the pack's ledgers.

He had stopped a feud over a well.

He had gone out in the sleet, alone, to a rogue's cabin at the north line.

He had come back with a woman and her two children and given them a place at the winter table.

Nobody said he was forgiven.

They said he was fit.

The eldest elder asked for the vote.

Twelve hands rose.

I didn't cry, and then I did, quietly, with my face in Finlay's hair.

Then an elder at the end of the bench stood up and cleared his throat.

He was thin and sour and wore a gray scarf.

He had sat through Beatrix's hearing last year without once lifting his eyes.