Chapter 20: The Notebook

Ivy's POV

Rafe laid the notebook on his kitchen table at two in the morning and did not open it.

"I can read it first," he said. "If you'd rather."

"No."

"Ivy. It's about the burn."

"I know what it's about."

For nine years I had told myself the same story.

I was ten.

Mom had gone to the lab for a minute, and I was alone in the training room with my little sister, and a silver-trimmed buckle was lying on the rack.

Cora had picked it up.

I should have taken it from her.

I had not watched her closely enough, and her whole leg had burned.

I had paid for it with a vial every month since I was ten.

"I was the one who left it where she could reach it," I said. "That's what they told me."

"I know."

"Then I'm going to read what she wrote."

I sat.

He stood behind my chair, and then he sat on the floor beside it, close, and rested his shoulder against my knee.

I opened the cover.

The first page was dated nine years ago, in Marla Garrick's neat round hand.

Buckle. Silver trim. Cora's rack. Tuesday.

I turned the page.

The entries were short.

The first said that Cora would be nine on Friday and that the clinic needed her to shift on schedule.

The next said that Cora's wolf was not coming in, and Russell was beginning to ask.

The next said: Ivy's blood might do it. Her line is strong. Test a vial in the tonic.

The one after said: It works. She shifts on the tea.

I read faster.

My hands had begun to shake, and Rafe laid his palm flat over the back of one.

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