Chapter 9: What the Hound Kept

Ansel's POV

Dara looked at me, and I could not read her face at all.

"Is it true?" she asked.

I had promised her I would never lie to her about the Council.

"Yes," I said. "He gave me that Order before dinner. I did not carry it out."

"You didn't."

"I went to your door because you asked me in."

Lucas laughed softly from the doorway.

"Out," she said. "Both of you."

It was not the Voice, and it landed harder than the Voice ever had.

I walked out of her room, and Lucas walked out beside me, smiling.

"Father wants you in the study," he said. "Don't dawdle, hound."

He had no power to say it to me.

He knew that, and I knew that.

I went anyway, because I wanted to see what the old man knew.

The study was warm and smelled of pipe smoke and lemon polish.

Edmund Corbin sat behind his desk in his cardigan, with a cup of tea.

"Shut the door," he said.

I shut it.

"Sit."

My legs sat me down in the chair before I had decided anything.

The Order always took the body first.

"Now," Corbin said kindly. "Tell me, did the girl take you to her bed?"

It was a question, and he had put the Seat's weight behind it.

I felt it close around my throat.