Chapter 17: The Seat

I dropped to my knees on the frozen grass and put both hands on Odette's chest.

"Breathe," I said. "Odette. Breathe."

Nothing.

The old woman from the infirmary was already beside me, with two fingers under Odette's jaw.

"Again," she said.

I pushed down with the heel of my hand, and Odette's ribs gave under it.

I pushed down again, and she coughed.

It was a wet, ugly cough, and it was the best sound I had ever heard.

Her eyes opened, grey and confused, and they found my face.

"Is it cold?" she whispered.

"It's cold."

"Good," Odette said. "I can feel it."

She began to cry, and I gathered her up against my chest, in my own arms, and held on.

Mathias had come down the bank.

He stood a few steps off, and he did not say anything, and when I looked up his eyes were wet.

The council met the next morning.

The eldest sat at the head of the long table, with six older men and women on either side.

I sat opposite him in my own body, in a plain dark dress.

It was strange to have long arms again.

I kept looking at my hands.

Mathias was not at the table.

Crowe wolves do not sit in a Redfern council, and he had said he would wait outside the double doors.

I could feel him there anyway, a warm place at the back of my wrist.

"Heir," the eldest said. "The pack asks a thing of you."

"Ask it."

"The Redfern seat is yours. Your father's chair, the ridge, the mill, the timber lands. We would see you take it before the new year."

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