Chapter 14: A Cup for Brenna

"Sit down, Margery," Osric said, and for the first time his voice was not gentle.

"No," said Aunt Margery.

She limped three steps into the aisle on her bad knee and held up the paper.

"It's a page from the Graymoor ledger, in your own hand," she said.

"Wintermere ward, monthly tonic, fourteen jars. Every month for seven years."

She turned to the dais.

"Make him tell you what is in a jar."

"Family medicine," said Osric. "For a delicate girl."

"Then you won't mind if the healer tells us," Lucan said from the foot of the dais.

The eldest councilor lifted his staff.

"The council will hear this at the Winter Solstice, in full session," he said.

"Until then Alpha Osric and his household remain in the capital as guests of this hall. No one leaves."

The Duke opened his mouth, and the old man looked at him, and he closed it again.

I changed back behind the grey screen with my hands shaking from the cold.

When I came out in my dress, Lucan was waiting at the edge of the cloth with his coat held open.

I walked into it.

The whole hall watched us, and neither of us cared.

"Tonight," he said into my hair, "we feast."

The banquet was in the east wing, under a hundred candles.

Every pack in the capital came to look at the white wolf.

Men who had not looked at me twice at my wedding bowed over my hand.

The councilor's wife from the car that never came was there.

She took both my hands again.

"My dear, I am so sorry for the mix-up," she said.

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