Chapter 19: The Pack Hears

The voices stopped as suddenly as they had begun.

I snatched my hand back from Torben's. The dining room was silent, and Gisela had not moved.

Her wineglass was still in her fingers. All the color had gone out of her face.

"Torben," she said, "close it."

"No."

"You have no idea what you have done."

"I think I do," he said. "I think I just told the whole pack who you are."

A bell began to toll in the harbor, the old call that summoned the founding houses.

I heard the gate crash open on the drive.

Conal came through the dining room doors at a run, with the ferry crew behind him and half the harbor on the steps.

He stopped at my chair and looked me over from head to foot.

"I'm fine," I said.

"Say my name next time."

"I was busy."

By dusk the Lowell hall was full.

The founding houses sat along both walls, in their good coats, grim and silent.

The old founder with the silver-handled cane took the chair at the end of the table.

Gisela stood at her own place with one hand on the cloth.

"This is an ambush," she said.

"My son opened his heart-link under my own roof without my leave. Nothing said at a private table binds a house."

Several of the families shifted in their seats.

"It binds a keeper of the registry," the old founder said.

"I was speaking in confidence."

"You were speaking to the pack." He tapped the cane once. "Sit down, Gisela. You will answer for this."

She sat, and her face did not move.

Torben stood beside my chair. He had not left it since the first toll.

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