Chapter 7. Technically Engaged

Josie's POV

I didn't tell him that day. I didn't get the chance, and when I got it, I didn't want to.

At ten the Royal Gamma tried to teach me to turn into a wolf in front of forty courtiers, and by eleven I had failed in front of every one of them.

They did it in the Moon Court, a square of raked sand behind the east wing with a gallery on three sides so the court could watch the guards train. That morning the court had come to watch me.

"Breathe in," said Gamma Ruiz. "Down past the belly. Feel for her."

Ruiz was a lean woman of fifty with a scar from ear to collarbone and the patience of someone being paid by the hour. She wasn't cruel. She looked at me the way a farrier looks at a horse with a bad leg.

I breathed in. I felt for her. I felt