Chapter 6: Swear It on the Moon

[Bee?] Beau said again. [I felt something wrong. Are you hurt?]

I sat bent over on Eli's bed with my wrist on fire and my eyes shut.

It was strange to hear him in my head.

He sounded the way he always did, tender and a little worried, and I knew now that this was a voice he could put on.

Eli knelt in front of me.

He did not touch me.

"Tell him you slipped," he said, very low. "Tell him you're resting at the weir. Do not say my name."

I thought the words at my wrist, as hard as I could.

[I'm okay. I slipped on the ledge and twisted my ankle. I'm resting by the old fish weir.]

There was a pause.

[The ledge,] Beau said. [Which ledge?]

[The one by the river. It's the one I always take.]

Another pause, longer.

[Okay,] he said. [Okay. Stay there. Gray's coming to get you.]

The mark cooled and the link went quiet.

I opened my eyes.

"Gray's coming," I said. "To find out whether his wire worked."

"Then you'd better be at the weir," Eli said. "Can you stand?"

I put my weight on my foot.

The pain was a dull throb now, and the red lines had faded to pink.

Wolfsbane burns, and it also leaves quickly when it is drawn out in time.

"Yes."

He walked me down the ridge, three feet to my left the whole way.

At the river he stopped.

"Tonight," he said. "They'll want you at a table. Eat only what you see everyone else eat."

"And then?"

"And then you do whatever you came to do," he said. "I'll be in the trees."

I did not look back, because I knew if I did I would turn around.

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