Chapter 11: Half a Reason

They put Adelaide in the lodge's small parlor, the one with the good chairs and the locked door.

Penny wrapped her burned hand in gauze and said nothing the whole time. She didn't have to.

I went in at midnight with a blanket still around my shoulders, and I made Conall wait outside.

Adelaide sat very straight on the settee with her white wool spread over her knees.

She had put her hair back in its twist, sitting as composed as if waiting for tea.

"You've grown into your father's temper," she said.

"You knew my father."

"I watched him die."

I sat down across from her, slowly, and set my back against the chair.

"Tell me," I said.

She looked at the gauze on her hand.

"Desmond killed Tobias in the challenge," she said. "It was legal. It was ugly, but it was legal."

"Then he wanted the line finished, and so he burned the house."

"With my mother in it."

"Your mother got out. She had you in her arms. She ran straight into me in the dark, at the edge of the woods."

Her pale eyes lifted, and they were wet.

"I took you from her myself. She was bleeding, and she couldn't run any further. I said I would hide you."

"What happened to her?"

"Desmond's men found her by the creek."

The room was very quiet.

"I carried you home under my coat," Adelaide said. "I told Desmond the girl had died in the fire."

"Then I told the pack I'd taken in an orphan from a rogue raid. He never looked at you twice."

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