Chapter 12: Mint-Green Eyes

We reached the border stone as the riders did.

Twelve of Matvei's guards had already formed a line in the road, and Anselm stood in front of them with his hand on his sword and his bad leg braced.

The man with the white flag was the Madam's lawyer.

He sat his horse very straight, and he did not look at the wolves.

"Alpha Dragunov," he said. "I carry a message from the Madam of House Lark."

"Say it."

"She asks that you read it in private. She was most particular."

"She isn't here to be particular."

"No." The lawyer's smile didn't change. "But she was certain you would want to see the enclosure."

He held down a folded paper and a rolled sheet tied with red thread.

Matvei took them.

I watched his hands as he untied the thread.

The paper he read first. His face turned as hard as the stone.

Then he unrolled the sheet, and he went white.

"Matvei?"

He didn't answer.

I stepped up beside him and looked.

It was a drawing made with a child's stub of chalk, in crooked lines. A woman with long red hair, in a green dress, standing in front of a house.

The woman's eyes were hazel brown.

Beside her, in the corner, someone had drawn a smaller figure holding her hand.

The small figure had green eyes. They were colored in so hard that the chalk had broken through the paper.

In the bottom corner, in careful letters, was a single T.

"Who drew this?" I said.

Matvei didn't answer.

"Matvei. Who drew this?"

The lawyer cleared his throat.

"The Madam thought you might wish to know," he said, "that the child's lessons have been going well. She says he draws the same woman every day."

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