Chapter 8: The Hall of Antlers

"In chains," Ianthe said that night, to nobody in particular.

The house was asleep.

She was sitting at the top of the stairs in her mother's old shawl, with the Prince's letter in her lap.

The wolf was asleep at the bottom, across the kitchen doorway, where he slept every night.

She could just see the shape of him in the dark.

She sat there for a long time, looking at him.

Then she tried one word on him, very quietly, from the top of the stairs.

He lifted his head.

He lay still a moment, listening to the word go on echoing after she had stopped.

Then he got up and came up the stairs.

All fourteen of them, slowly, stepping over the loose third one the way he always did.

He stopped on the step below hers and sat down.

They looked at each other.

His eyes were grey in the dark.

"Hello," Ianthe said.

His ears went back a little, uncertain.

She put her hand on his head and scratched behind his ear until he leaned into it.

"I was unfair to someone the other night," she said.

He went still under her hand.

"I said some things about a man I'd only ever seen across a ballroom. That he sounded dreadful. That I'd sooner marry the wine merchant."

"I'd like to take some of it back."

The clock in the hall ticked.

"Not the part about breakfast," she said. "I'm sure he's dreadful at breakfast."

The wolf huffed quietly through his nose.

Ianthe laughed, and stayed on the stairs with him until the candle went out.

The Winter Court opened sixteen days later, in the Hall of Antlers.

Its walls were covered from floor to ceiling with every stag some emperor had ever shot.

The Crown Prince lounged on a gilded chair at the top of the dais, with one leg over the arm.

The Marquess of Morcaine stood at his right hand.

Keep reading free with an account. Start The Wolf I Saved Was the Mad Duke from Chapter 1, then sign up free to read the rest of this chapter.