The Nameless Luna novel · Chapter 25 of 32

Chapter 25: The Hearing

The enforcer on my left was the one who'd padlocked the Cub.

He didn't take my arm. He just stood there, close enough to.

"Ma'am," he said.

"You again."

"Me again."

Warrick looked at the two of them, then at me.

I gave him the signal for go.

He didn't like it. He went.

The Coldfoot pack walked into the Midwinter hall in a double line, Warrick at the front, Gussie behind him with her chin up.

At the threshold, all thirty of them reached up at once and put their headsets on.

I heard the switches click.

The hall saw it.

Somebody at the Juneau tables laughed out loud.

Then a lot of people did.

"Holloran's brought a band," a man called.

The Coldfoot pack walked through it to the far end, under the window that leaked, and sat down.

None of them could hear a word.

The cook folded her hands on the tablecloth.

I waited in the doorway with the snow behind me while the laughing died down.

Then the roll keeper nodded, and the enforcers walked me in.

The room changed when it saw me between them.

I knew that sound now. The whisper going around.

Unbound. Rogue. The Tennant girl.

I didn't look for my parents.

I did anyway.

They were at the Tennant table near the front.

My mother sat very straight, her hands in her lap.

My father had his coat on, buttoned, in a warm room.

His right hand was flat against the front of it.

I couldn't see a book. I couldn't see anything.

The enforcers stopped me in the middle of the floor, in the open, ten feet from the roll table.

There was no chair.

Elden stood up at the High table.

Beside him, the High Alpha's big chair was empty, with a folded blanket on the seat.

"Thank you all for coming out in the dark," Elden said.

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