The Luna He Failed to Protect novel · Chapter 15 of 32

Chapter 15: The Records Room

Cale came down off the dais without the ring.

Nobody stopped him.

Nobody knew what to do with him now.

He walked straight down the hall to me, past the moon fire and the ash of the orders, and stopped an arm's length away.

The exact distance I'd taught him in the hot spring.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I should have said it two years ago. Before the paper. At the table."

"Yes," I said. "You should have."

That was all I gave him in front of them.

Morwenna was watching.

I wasn't going to let her see anything else.

That night the elder sent for both of us.

He met us at the back of the round hall with a candle and a ring of iron keys.

"The theft charge stands," he said. "So does yours, if you bring it. And you'll lose, girl."

"I have the book."

"You have a book full of the letter I." He started down a stone stair behind the dais. "Garth will say I is anyone. A cook. A creditor. A woman in the city."

"Then what do I need?"

"Her name," he said. "In her own hand, on a posting. And I think the boy knows where to find one."

Under the round hall was the records room.

I'd never been in it.

It was long and low, cut into the hill, with shelves to the ceiling and the smell of old paper and mice.

The elder lit two lamps and left us there.

"I'm too old for stairs twice in one night," he said. "Lock up when you're done."

The door shut.

It was very quiet.

"The posting rolls," Cale said. He took a lamp down the shelves. "Every wolf sent south gets entered here. Name, date, and whoever authorized it signs the roll. When Father's sick, the Luna can sign in his place."

"Was he sick four years ago?"

"He had his first attack that winter." Cale stopped. "She signed for him for three months."

We started at opposite ends.

The rolls were heavy canvas books, one a year, with the pack's moon stamped on the spines.

The dust got into my throat.

Cale handed me a water flask without being asked, and I drank and gave it back, and our fingers didn't touch.

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