Chapter 15: The Hollow

Torben had left the twins asleep at the ferry woman's house the night before, and he had not said where he was going next.

I did not have time to worry about him.

On Wednesday at ten we were on the cliff path below the Stone, with a coil of rope over Conal's shoulder.

The tide was far out. Wet black rock shone under a half moon.

"One way down, one way out," Conal whispered.

"I read the map."

"Stay behind me."

"Cardross, I'm the one with the receipts and the plan."

"Then stay behind me with the plan."

I was smiling in the dark when the first howl went up from the headland.

It was a wolf's howl, long and clear, and it carried across the whole coast.

Conal went still.

"That's not a guard," he said. "That's a call to every Lowell wolf on the cliff."

"They knew we were coming."

"Portia?"

"No." I thought of her swollen eyes. "Gisela knew Portia would talk."

A second howl answered the first, and then a third, closer.

"Run," Conal said.

We ran.

The path turned to loose stone under my boots. Conal caught my arm at every slip and hauled me upright without breaking stride.

Above us, I heard claws on rock.

Two shapes came down the slope, gray and fast, with their eyes lit green.

"Guards," he said through his teeth. "In wolf form."

"Can you take them?"

"Not both. Not with you here."

"Then don't take them."

I pointed at the dark seam in the cliff face below us, where the sea had cut a cave.

He looked at it, and he looked at me.

"It floods at high tide," he said.

"It's low tide now."

"Isla."

"Go!"

We slid the last twenty feet on our heels and shoved through the gap. The rock closed around us, cold and dripping.

Behind us the guards snarled at the mouth of the cave and drew back.

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