Chapter 13: Nineteen Keys

Torin's POV

Ferris shut my office door with her heel and set a cup of black coffee in front of me.

"You haven't eaten since yesterday," she said.

"I'm not hungry."

"You stood in the registry hall and said 'wants' like a verdict. Drink the coffee, Torin."

She only used my name when I was being stupid.

I did not touch the cup.

"The sister sent a letter out at dawn," Ferris said. "To Greyfall. A runner took it before I could reach him."

"To whom?"

"I don't know yet."

"She whispered to Nessa in the registry hall," I said. "Nessa went grey."

"She told you what it was?"

"No. She said it was nothing."

"Then it was not nothing."

A brass ring lay on my desk with nineteen keys on it.

It held every door in the royal wing, the archive, the vault, the stables and my own rooms.

"Your Silver Wolf is going to walk out at Midwinter," Ferris said. "She told you so to your face."

"She may."

"Then tell her the rest of it."

"The rest of it is not hers to carry."

"It is exactly hers," Ferris said. "You've had it for two weeks and she's had it for one day."

I got up and went to the window.

The Academy track lay below, wet and grey, and a few cadets were already running it.

For ten years I had smelled nothing on anyone.

Not rain, not blood, not the women the Court sent to my table in their best silk.

Then a roll of parchment hit my desk at eight-forty on a Tuesday night, and the whole room smelled like her.

Cold air, cut grass and warm wax.

I had been standing before I knew I had stood.

I put my seal on her sheet and pressed it into the wax, and it was done in a minute.

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