Chapter 8

They held it in the Alpha’s study, among the green-and-gold books.

I had never been inside that room. I had copied every one of those books, but someone else had always carried them up. It was smaller than I had imagined and smelled of pipe smoke and leather polish, and over the fireplace hung a portrait of Gareth’s grandfather with one hand on a map of land that had belonged to Silverbrook when I was born.

It took an hour to get everyone there. In that hour, a great many things happened that I mostly heard rather than saw, because Caspian had told me to stay in the cellar with Rhys and the door shut until they sent for me.

I heard Delphine tell Petra, in the corridor, that Crown witness or not, the ward was going to the smokehouse, and that Petra was to fetch her. I heard Petra come down the cellar stairs with two of Gareth’s warriors behind her, and Rhys stood up from my chair, and said, very quietly, “Turn round.” I heard Petra not turn round. I heard what happe