Chapter 11: The Stairs

"Thank you, Seer," I said. "I don't take gifts from the Council."

Aldous kept smiling.

"It isn't from the Council, Lady Morland. It's the moon's courtesy."

"Then the moon can send it herself."

For a moment his pale eyes rested on my face.

I could not read what was in them, and that was the first thing about him that ever frightened me.

"As you wish," he said, and put the box down on the flat stone.

He bowed, and walked back to the car with Magnus a step behind him.

Magnus did not look at me again.

The Healer got to the box before I did.

She picked it up with the tongs from the fire and carried it to the edge of the light.

She lifted the lid with a stick.

Inside lay a white silk cord, coiled neatly on a satin pad.

She pressed a scrap of beeswax against it and held it up to the flames.

The wax turned blue.

"Resin," she said. "Painted into the weave."

"It would soak through the skin of your wrist in an hour."

"At the rite, in front of every pack, with your wolf finally back."

I looked at the cord.

"He wants me quiet at the basin."

"Or he wants you on your knees."

Torin took the box from her without a word and tipped the whole thing into the fire.

The silk went up in one bright flash.

A little silver pin on the clasp caught the heat and flew out.

It tore a line across the back of his hand, and he hissed through his teeth.

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