The Thirteenth Moon novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Sable's Door

The note was five lines long.

It said: Behind the cookhouse. Please come alone. I won't hurt you. I can't say it anywhere else.

Torin read it over my shoulder and put it back in my hand.

"No," he said.

"She came to Edda's window barefoot to save your life."

"She also ate your food for thirteen moons and said nothing."

"I know what she did." I folded the paper small. "I want to hear her say it."

He looked at me for a while.

"I'll be at the end of the path," he said. "Three steps, if you scream."

Sable lived in a one-room cottage behind the cookhouse, where the delivery trucks turned around.

The door was open before I knocked.

She stood in the middle of the room in an old sweater of Davin's, with her hair uncombed and her face swollen from crying.

On the table behind her were a mug of cold tea and one folded sheet of paper.

"Thank you for coming," she said.

"Say it."

"Brynn..."

"Whatever you brought me here to say. Say it first. Then I'll decide whether I stay."

She took a breath that shook all the way down.

"The first week of your betrothal, Orrin came to the cookhouse after closing," she said.

"He sat on a flour barrel and told me what your wrist was."

I didn't move.

"He said you didn't know and weren't going to.

He said Davin was a good boy who talked too much.

He said the two of them would keep you comfortable and quiet for as long as you lived."

"And you."

"He said if anything ever happened to you, I'd be Luna."

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