Chapter 12: Maisy

"Term three," I said.

Torben was already pulling on his coat.

"I know what term three says."

"I go where I like. You don't follow."

"It's a rule for when it isn't dangerous," he said. "You told me that yourself."

"It's a hallway and a room, Torben. I lived in it for five years."

"With a man who locked a cuff on you and put your friend in a chair."

I looked at him, and he looked back, and neither of us blinked.

"Fine," I said. "You can stand on the line. Not past it."

"The line is the front door of the packhouse."

"Then the sill."

"I can live with the sill," he said.

I drove the green truck myself.

We crossed the white post at four o'clock, and nobody stopped us.

The Great Hall doors stood open on the evening meal.

Four hundred wolves sat at the long tables under the lamps, and the white orchids were still in the centerpieces, gone brown at the edges.

At the far end of the room, Heath sat at the head table in his black coat.

Beside him, in a straight chair, sat Maisy with her hands in her lap.

She had a bruise coming on her cheekbone.

She saw me and shook her head, once, very small.

I walked in.

Conversation stopped table by table as I passed.

I walked the whole length of the hall with the sound of my own boots on the boards, and Torben stopped on the sill behind me.

I felt him there the whole way.

"Margo," Heath said, and rose, and smiled his gentlest smile. "I'm glad you came. I thought we might talk privately."

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