Chapter 14: What He Felt at the Table

Caius's POV

I stood at the open gate until the taillights were gone.

Then I went inside and shut the front door very carefully, because I did not trust my hands.

The guard captain was waiting in the hall with his cap off.

"Sir," he said. "The two who went into the hills are back."

"Tell me."

"The witch's cabin is empty. Stove cold, a week at least." He held out his palm.

A knot of grey thread lay on it, tied three times around a dried sprig of something.

"It was nailed to her door," he said. "Nothing else."

"Who sent those two?" I said, though I knew.

"You did, sir. The day after the stake."

"And did the lady know?"

"No, sir. You told us not to say."

I took the thread from him and closed my fist on it.

I had sent two wolves up into the Rockies to hunt a hedge witch the morning after I took Marlo's name off a poker table.

I had told no one, because the law was plain.

A stake-holder may not investigate the mark of the wolf he holds, or the Council can call the stone's answer tainted.

I had found a way around the law by sending wolves in my place and keeping my own hands clean.

I had not told her, and I had told myself that was the cost of keeping the trial fair.

"There's more," the captain said, and cleared his throat.

"Say it."

"Your wolves came in by the north road. They said you were at the Montana line in March."

"I was."

"Sir, the Northern Healers' is four miles from that road."

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