Chapter 21: Ask Me Tomorrow

Rafe put both hands on the podium and looked at the room.

Then he looked at me, and he did not look away again.

"On Founders' Night I stood here and looked at my hands," he said. "I want everyone to know why."

Nobody coughed or shifted.

"I looked at them because I could not look at her and do it."

He drew a breath.

"I had fourteen names in my pocket. I told myself that was a reason. It was a reason, and it was not an excuse."

His voice was steady, but his knuckles were white.

"She was at table one with a stack of place cards she'd written for me."

His jaw worked.

"I heard the hall laugh at her. I heard the word. I let it go on."

A low murmur ran along the benches.

"I also did something worse, and I have never said it where the pack could hear."

He kept his eyes on mine.

"For two years I measured her by what she didn't say to me. I never asked what she was carrying. I just decided I was alone."

He stepped away from the podium.

"So I'm done standing up here. I won't ask from a stage."

He came down the two steps of the dais.

At the bottom of them he went onto his knees on the bare boards.

He knelt in front of three packs, and in front of the people he had led for twelve years.

"Linnet Averill," he said. "I was wrong, and I hurt you, and I'm not asking you to say it's all right."

He swallowed.

"I'm asking what it would cost me to be let back in."