Chapter 7: Blood on My Hands

I took my wrist out of my mother's hand.

"No," I said.

Her eyes widened.

"Rosalind."

"She wasn't ill. She sewed ribbon around a silver knife and bolted my door. Ask the elders what she said in the hall."

"Please."

"You asked me to lie for her," I said, very low, so only she could hear. "I'm done doing that."

Mother's face went the color of paper, and her eyes closed, and the healer said, "She's fainted. Good. Get the table."

They carried her to the pack infirmary on a door taken off its hinges.

Four of us walked behind it in the dark: Father, Tobin, Bram and me.

The infirmary was a long white room beside the moon hall, with a lamp over every bed.

They put Mother in the far one and drew the curtain.

Father stood against the wall with his arms hanging.

Tobin stood in the middle of the floor and stared at me.

"You knew," he said.

"I knew what Linnet would do."

"You knew, and you let Mother sit in that room."

"I asked her to come out. She wouldn't."

"She wouldn't because you told her to be there!"

"She told me to go to bed," I said. "Twice."

He took a step toward me.

Bram moved before I did, and stood between us.

"Careful," he said.

"This is my sister."

"This is your sister," Bram agreed. "The one you've called ill since she was fourteen. Look at your hands, Tobin."

Tobin looked down.

There was blood on his sleeve from when he'd knelt in the hall.

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