Chapter 18: Sunday Skate

Sunday morning, Bram opened the practice rink behind the training center, and for two hours nobody in Duluth tried to take my son away from me.

Emil wore Northmen skates two sizes too big, stuffed with socks.

Rhys held him up under the arms and pushed him down the ice, and Emil shrieked the whole way.

"Let go!" he yelled. "Dad, let go, I can do it!"

It was the first time he had said Dad awake.

Rhys let go.

Emil wobbled, windmilled, and slid ten feet on his stomach with his stick still in his fist.

He lay there, looked up at the lights, and began to laugh.

"Again," he said.

Bram skated over backward with a bucket of pucks and a grin.

"Kid's got an Alpha's shot," he said. "Look at that wrist."

"He fell on his wrist," I said.

"Looks great, though."

Hattie sat on the bench with a tin of oatmeal cookies on her lap and a thermos of her terrible herbal tea.

She handed out cookies to anyone who skated past, human or wolf, and she charged them a compliment each.

"Your form is a disgrace," she told Bram, and gave him two.

I skated a slow lap with my hands in my pockets.

I had been a girls' league skater once, and my legs remembered.

Rhys came alongside without a word and matched my stride, and we went around together.

"The veil," I said, low. "Emil's guardian. How long?"

"Eleven days to the next Moon Rite. She thinks she has time."

"Do we?"

"I'm working on it," Rhys said. "I won't lie to you. I don't have it yet."

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