Chapter 14: The Tin

Nobody moved.

Lorna laughed, a small cracked sound, and put her hand out to her son.

"Baby, you're confused. You're tired."

Emmett took one step back from her.

"I'm not confused," he said. "You make it brown. Then you say drink it all."

The white-braided elder came down off the stone and knelt in front of him, which I had never seen her do for anyone.

"Child," she said. "When does your mama make it stronger?"

His eyes went to Tobin, up on Otis's hip, and then to the ground.

"When the Alpha's going to Tobin's."

The whole ridge heard it.

"He's six," Lorna said sharply.

"Catriona spoke to him alone in that hallway. She told him what to say."

"I told him nothing," I said. "He told me."

"Healer," said the elder, without turning. "Guards. Bring the tin from the Quill house.

"Now."

Two wolves broke from the ring and ran.

Nobody spoke while they were gone, and I had never heard a hundred and fifty people be so quiet.

Lorna stood very straight with her hands folded.

Conall had come down from the stone and stood at my shoulder.

I didn't look at him.

I could feel the heat of him anyway.

The guards were back in ten minutes, breathing hard.

One of them held up a round blue tin with a lid.

Tea, it said, in Lorna's handwriting.

The pack healer took it.

He opened it and sniffed, and then he did something I'd have stopped him from doing.

He put a pinch of the bark on his tongue, held it there, and spat it into his palm.

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