Chapter 5: The Handwriting

The Gathering Hall had been scrubbed since the attack, but the stone still smelled faintly of bleach.

A hundred wolves stood along its walls at noon, and the long table in the middle was bare.

Rosalind had insisted on holding it here.

She had walked in on her own feet, with Maud on one side and Perrin on the other.

Dorian had not stopped her.

He wanted to prove something, and he was waiting to see what.

"You wanted an audience," he said from the head of the table. "Here it is."

"I want you to read me a paper."

"Which paper?"

Rosalind nodded to Perrin.

He set the taped sheets on the table in a neat row, and the whole hall leaned in to look.

"These are the seven divorce agreements," Perrin said. "Each one has your signature, Alpha."

"I signed them. So?"

"Read me the second clause of the fourth one."

Dorian pulled the page toward him.

He looked at it for a long moment, and his eyes moved down the lines, and he did not say anything.

"Aloud," Rosalind said.

"It's a standard clause."

"Then it'll be easy."

His mouth went tight.

"It says," he said slowly, "that the Luna's quarters in the pack house are to be given to the co-Luna."

"Go on."

"That the Luna surrenders the Hearth key."

"The Hearth key."

He stopped.

A wolf near the door whistled low, and somebody shushed him.

"I didn't write that," Dorian said.

"No," Rosalind said. "You didn't."

"I told Pippa what I wanted. I told her I wanted a fresh start. She put it in the proper words."

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