Chapter 23: Judgment

The pack hall was packed again before the sky went gray.

Nobody had slept.

Ernest sat in a folding chair in the middle of the floor, with a blanket over his shoulders and a bandage on his leg.

Regan sat three chairs away between two guards. She was shaking.

Dane stood in front of the head table with his ribs bound and his shoulder bruised black.

He had a small green tin in his hand.

"Carrie and I went to the Merrow lodge an hour ago," he said.

"The shelf above the stove has a row of tins marked with Nan's initial."

He held up the one he carried.

"This one has no month on the lid. It's the oldest one. It had no tea in it."

He tipped it out into his palm.

A folded square of paper fell out, brown at the creases, with a wax seal that had never been broken.

"It's addressed to my father," Dane said. "In Nan's mother's hand."

I could not breathe.

He cracked the seal with his thumb and read it out, and his voice did not shake once.

"Alpha. My daughter's wolf is silver, and it is bound to your son."

"Do not let anyone hold her back when she is grown."

"I am too ill to bring this myself, so Ernest will carry it. I trust him with everything."

He lowered the page.

"My father died without ever seeing it," he said. "Ernest kept it in the tin for twelve years."

The hall was silent.

"I told you I'd answer," Ernest said.

He looked up at me from the chair, and his old eyes were clear and tired.

"Ask me, Alpha."

"What did you put in her mother's tea?"

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