Chapter 9: Magnus's POV

Magnus's POV

I had been sleeping in her suite for six nights.

Nobody had told me to, and nobody had told me not to.

It still smelled of her, cedar and green tea.

I lay on top of the blanket in my clothes and looked at the ceiling.

On the table beside her bed there was an empty space where a glass had stood every night for two months.

I had not noticed it before.

At nine o'clock there was a knock, and Aldous came in with a tray.

He had been at my side since I was fourteen.

My father had brought him in from Ashgrove to read the moon for the Crown.

He set the tray down and poured, and the steam rose between us.

"You haven't eaten," he said.

"I'm not hungry."

"Chamomile, then. It will help you sleep."

I took the cup and did not drink it.

"She didn't come back," I said.

"She won't, not tonight. The shock is too fresh."

"I knelt in the mud in front of forty wolves, Aldous."

"And every one of them saw a king who understands what he did."

"That is worth more than it feels like."

He sat across from me with his hands folded, ink on two of his fingers.

He had a voice that made even a bad night sound manageable.

"The rite is in three weeks," he said. "She promised to stand at the basin."

"She'll see the boy blessed in front of every pack."

"The thing between you will begin to heal."

"Time does that. I've seen it."

"The order," I said.

"Yes?"

"You told me it had to be spoken. That it couldn't be written down."

"The moon takes the word of a living voice. Ink is for councils. It's in the old texts."

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