Chapter 21: The Tall Man

Sorrel's POV

I told him in the cart, because there was no good place to do it.

He sat on my lap with the grey blanket around his shoulders.

Matvei rode alongside the cart and did not speak.

"Your mama died when you were born," I said. "I'm sorry. She asked me to tell you something."

Tobin looked at me with those green eyes.

"She said she loved you before you had a face," I said. "That's all of it. I made her say it twice."

He took a long time to answer.

"I knew," he said. "The maid told me. I wanted somebody to say it."

I put my chin on his head and held him so he wouldn't see my face.

He did not cry. He didn't cry that night either.

The pack-house hall was full of wolves when we came in, and they all went quiet at the sight of him.

Tobin stopped in the doorway.

I felt him look at the stone ceiling, the long tables and the forty strange faces.

I felt him measure the distance to the nearest door.

I knew the look. I had worn it for twenty-six years.

"Give him the room next to mine," I told Anselm. "And keep everyone out of the corridor."

"Done."

"And find something that isn't grey."

By midnight we had lost him.

He had gone into the room, and the cook had brought a tray, and when I went in to check, the bed was empty.

I found him under it with the blanket pulled over his head.

"Okay," I said, and sat down on the floor.

Nothing moved.

"I used to sleep under mine too," I said. "The floor boards were cold, but nobody looked."

A long pause.

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