Chapter 4: The Roll

In the morning my wrists were smooth.

I turned them over under the bathroom light and found no welt, no red line, not even a mark where the silver had been.

A human would have blistered for a week.

I put on the blue jacket and went out into the hall.

Corbin was coming down the corridor with his glove back on and a gray tiredness around his eyes.

He saw me and stopped a few paces off.

"Wynne will show you the roll," he said. "The old scent-keeper is expecting you."

"You aren't coming?"

"No."

"Because of rule two."

"Because I'd like to get through today without my eyes changing color in front of the seven packs."

He stepped wide around me, keeping the whole width of the hall between us.

I watched him go and told myself I was looking at the way he walked.

I wasn't.

The archive was a low room behind the lodge library, lined with shelves and smelling of old paper and lamp oil.

Wynne led me in with a mug in each hand.

The old scent-keeper from the table sat behind a desk, a ledger the size of a paving stone open in front of her.

"The Muster roll," Wynne said. "Every wolf born into the seven packs for two hundred years."

"Show her the Aldren page, Wynne," said the old keeper. "She's earned a look."

The old woman looked at me, then at my bare hands.

"My father's entry," I said.

"Your father's, your grandfather's, and yours."

Wynne turned the pages carefully and put her finger on a line near the bottom.

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