Chapter 5: The Placeholder

Eskil read the letter twice under the gate lamp.

"It's in order," he said at last, and his voice had no warmth in it.

"The hosting clause is old, but it's real," the girl in the white coat said. "A suitor's household may stay under the Alpha's roof until the Moot."

"My father thought it only courteous."

"Your father thinks a lot of things are courteous," Eskil said.

She was twenty-two, with sleek pale hair and Reino's blue eyes, and she looked straight at me for the first time.

"You must be the pitcher," she said sweetly.

"Maija," I said.

"Of course. Lovely to meet you."

She went past us into the Longhouse with her six wolves and her suitcase, and Eskil gave her the guest wing because the law gave him no choice.

I went home to my cabin and did not sleep.

The next evening I went back, and I did it on purpose.

I put on my one good green sweater, brushed out my braid, and walked into the great hall at supper with my chin up.

Leena was setting out bowls, and she nearly dropped the stew.

"You don't have to," she hissed. "Nobody's making you pour tonight."

"I'm not pouring."

"Then what are you doing?"

"Eating," I said.

The long table was full.

Reino's daughter sat three seats down from the Alpha's chair, in a cream silk blouse, with her white coat folded neatly over her seat.

At the head of the table, Eskil stood up when he saw me.

Forty wolves watched him do it.

The chair at the Alpha's right hand had been empty for three years.

It was the Luna's chair, carved with wolves along the back, and no one in this pack sat in it.

Eskil pulled it out.

"No," I said, quietly. "Absolutely not."

"It's a chair," he said.

"It's the chair."

"You said your table and your door were yours. This one's mine, and I'd like you at it."

He waited, and the whole hall waited with him.

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