Chapter 5: Pass the Salt

Breakfast at Moonstone is a long table with sixty wolves at it, and every one of them had stopped chewing when I came in.

I stood in the doorway in a borrowed robe and yesterday's heels.

"Good morning," I said.

Sixty people looked at their eggs.

A maid pulled out the chair beside Lucan's, which was the one that stood at the head, and I sat.

The eggs on my plate were perfect and had no salt.

"Excuse me," I said to the man on my left. "Could you pass the salt?"

He stared at the saltshaker, then at me, then at the alpha, and then he looked back down and kept eating.

That was beat one.

For beat two, I stood up, walked around the table to a woman who had the shaker at her elbow, and said it again.

She went pale.

"I can't," she whispered. "It's not done."

"What's not done?"

"Speaking to you before the pack has seen you live a week."

"It's a saltshaker."

"It's tradition," she said. "Please sit down."

I sat down.

Dottie and Frankie had come in behind me and taken seats at the far end.

Dottie raised her eyebrows.

Frankie mouthed something that I think was the word "code."

I stood up again.

The whole room flinched.

"Is there anyone at this table," I said, "who is permitted to hand a person a mineral?"

"Poppy," said Lucan.

"I just want salt."

"I know."

He reached across the table and picked up the shaker.

He held it out to me.

Every fork in the room went down at once.

"What happened?" I whispered.

"Nothing."

"Why did they all gasp?"

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