Chapter 7: Terms of Staying

I buttoned my bodice with fingers that did not feel like mine.

Nobody helped, and nobody looked away.

A heavy coat dropped over my shoulders and smelled of woodsmoke and horse.

"That was a coward's thing to do," Cadoc said, very low, so only I could hear it.

He did not look at me.

He looked at his brother's back.

"He didn't do it for fun," Gethin said, and his voice cracked.

"Mab, he doesn't mean it. He's never said anything like that to anybody."

"He meant every word."

"He shook. I've never seen him shake."

"I saw it too," I said.

I pulled the coat closed and watched Torren's broad back at the trough, bent over his scrubbed hands.

Then I went to bed, and I did not cry until I'd shut the door and turned the key.

I gave myself exactly as long as it took the candle to burn down an inch.

Then I washed my face.

I had been handed over.

I had been rejected in front of a yard of strangers with my laces open.

Neither one had killed me.

At breakfast the great hall was packed, because every wolf in Ironmere had heard.

Three long tables ran down the room, and the high table sat across the far end.

Torren sat at the centre of it with a bowl in front of him and did not touch it.

I crossed the whole floor with every eye on me and took a bowl from the serving girl.

Then I sat in the open seat between Cadoc and Gethin.

It was the lowest table, nearest the door.

It was also the one beside the only two men in the hold who had spoken to me kindly.

Cadoc looked at the coat I was still wearing.

"Keep it," he said. "It's cold."

"Thank you."

"It's not kindness. It's a loan."

"I'll make sure to bring it back," I said, "with interest."

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