Chapter 20: The Moot

The Moot field lay in a high bowl of the mountains, and it held every pack I had ever heard of.

They stood in rings of black and gray coats under a sky with no moon in it.

Torches ran in a long line down the middle of the grass.

At the far end stood a dais built of pale stone.

Twelve chairs sat on it.

Nine were full, and three, at the left end, held the elders who had refused to vote.

Honora stood at the center in a gown the color of ash.

Lavinia stood beside her, in white, with her hands clasped and her eyes on the ground.

Behind me, at the line of white stones that marked the edge of the field, Ironwood stood in a block of two hundred.

I did not look back.

I knew where Dashiell was by the sound of his breathing.

I walked in alone, as the letter said.

Every pack on the field turned to watch me do it.

The whispers followed me down the torchlit lane.

The waitress, they said. The wolfless girl.

Then someone said, soft and startled, "The scar."

The silver ran up my arm under the sleeve, and I did not hide it.

I stopped at the foot of the dais.

"I came," I said. "Where is she?"

Honora tilted her head, and all the kindness in the world was in her face.

"Where is who, my dear?"

"My mother. You said she'd be waiting."

"I said nothing." Honora spread her hands to the field.

"I have never written you a letter, Miss Vane. Has anyone seen a letter?"

A murmur went through the rings, and I felt it land.

She was telling a hundred packs that the waitress was hysterical.

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