Chapter 16. What the Root Takes

June's POV

Davy started shaking at noon.

By two o'clock, he was screaming.

Maren had seen wolves come off greyroot before, she said, but only after a few days of small doses for a wound. Never like this. Never after a year.

"His body thinks it's dying," she said grimly, holding him down by the shoulders while he bucked on the cot. "The root's been doing the work of keeping him quiet for so long that his wolf doesn't know how to come back without tearing him apart."

"Then give him a little," Nell begged from the corner, her hands pressed over her mouth. "Just a little. Please. Make it stop."

Maren looked at me.

I knew what she was asking. I'd lived on this root for eleven years. I'd come off it in one night, in a river, with no warning at all.

"Not a little," I said slowly. "Less. Every day less. If you take it all away at once, he'll b