Chapter 6: Live Air

Tilly's scream cut through the garden and kept going.

Nobody moved.

Twenty-three women stood frozen in gray robes, and six alphas stood frozen in black suits.

Four cameras crept closer on their little rails.

"It's gone," Tilly sobbed. "I can't hear her. Where is she? Where is she?"

I was across the circle before I knew I had moved.

I dropped to my knees on the wet grass and pulled Tilly against my chest.

She was ice cold, and her whole body shook.

"I've got you," I said. "I've got you."

"I can't feel her, Juniper."

"I know."

"Why can't I feel her?"

A hand landed on my shoulder, firm and cool.

"Dear, the medics will take her now," Delphine said, pleasant and low. "It's a common reaction. She'll be perfectly fine by morning."

"You're lying," I said.

The cameras caught it.

I felt them lean in.

I looked up at Delphine, then straight into the nearest lens.

"Look at her," I said, loud and clear.

"She walked up to your Well a wolf, and she's on the grass without one."

"Nineteen," Delphine said, with a laugh that didn't reach her eyes. "You're upset."

"What does the Well take?"

"The moon takes nothing. The moon weighs."

"Then why can't she hear her wolf?"

A murmur ran around the circle.

Behind me I heard someone whisper, "She's right, her eyes are wrong."

Tilly's pupils were wide and unseeing.

"This is dramatic television," Imogen said, from the front row, with a little theatrical sigh. "Some girls are so fragile."

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