My Pet Sold Me novel · Chapter 10 of 24

Chapter 10: Clause Three

The Midsummer fire burned in a stone ring at the end of a long meadow.

About a hundred beasts stood around it in the dusk.

Foxes were on the north side.

Wolves were on the south.

A few bears and a pair of huge, silent hawk-folk stood off by the trees, and nobody stood near them.

I walked in at Dane's side, in my own jeans and my own denim jacket.

Penny walked on my other side, with her phone held up in front of her.

"Don't film," I said.

"I'm not filming. I'm recording."

"Penny."

"It's audio. They can't see audio."

Tobin was already there.

He stood with two foxes on either side of him, his red hair brushed, his jacket buttoned for once.

He looked small.

Sable stood beside him in a white dress with her hands folded, and she looked straight at me.

She was smiling.

It was the same warm smile she had given me the first day, over a paper cup with three sugars.

I understood exactly how well she wore it.

The clerk in the gray suit stood at the fire with his leather ledger open on a stand.

No one had seen him arrive.

The Elder sat on a carved stool in front of him, with her cane across her knees.

"Be seated, all," she said, and her voice carried to the trees.

"The Concord has opened a record," the clerk said.

"It concerns a keeper bond entered seven years ago in October.

"The fox is Tobin Kauffman, and the human is Lara Aldrin."

A murmur ran around the fire.

Sable's smile did not move.

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