Chapter 20: The Table

The founders' table stood on the Lowell lawn, a long slab of black oak that had come over the sea with the first houses.

The Acceptance Gathering began at noon on Sunday, under a hard blue sky.

Every wolf on the coast was there, sworn and unsworn, in rows on the grass.

Torben stood at my left hand in his navy blazer, as he had promised.

Conal stood at my right, in the same canvas jacket he wore on the ferry, because I'd told him to wear what he liked.

The harbor crew held the back of the lawn. The ferry woman had brought the twins, and they sat on her knees at the front.

The old founder rapped the table with his cane.

"The black seal," he said. "Keeper, produce it."

Gisela stood at the head of the table in a gray suit and her pearls.

She had not slept. I could see it in the set of her mouth.

"I produce it under protest," she said.

She reached into her handbag and drew out a thin black envelope.

The wax was dull and old. It was stamped with the Ledgewatch crest, the same one carved on the frame from the Ten.

She set it on the oak and slid it down the table toward me with two fingers.

It stopped in front of my hand.

"Be careful, dear," she said softly. "You don't know what's inside."

"I know what it is."

"Do you?"

"A true mate's name."

A murmur ran across the lawn.

I looked at the seal. It was only a coin of wax on a piece of paper.

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