Chapter 107: Maeve's Betrayal

I went back up the hill.

The pack house was in an uproar. There were wolves in the yard and wolves in the hall and wolves on the stairs, and Nessa went in ahead of me shouting Colm's name.

I found him in the kitchen.

He was sitting on the bench by the fire with his head in his hands and his coat still on and he did not look up when I came in.

"Colm," I said.

"Luna." He lifted his head. "I am sorry. I went to get my coat and I went past the Beta's room and the door was open."

"What did you see?"

He got up and went to the table and picked up a paper.

It was a map. It was a map of the Blackthorn coast with the border patrol routes drawn on it in red ink, and along the bottom of it there was a note in Maeve's hand that said, the north track is unguarded between the second and third hour, and the east wall is held by four wolves only.

"She has taken the patrol routes," Colm said. "She has been in her room all morning and there were two Ravenscar wolves at the gate at dawn and I saw one of them go up the back stairs."

I took the map.

"Where is she now?"

"Gone. Her and the eight and the two Ravenscar wolves. They went out the back and down to the harbour and there is a boat at the pier."

I went out.

Ronan was in the hall.

"Fiadh," he said. "What is it?"

"Your Beta has taken the patrol routes and given them to Ravenscar and she has gone." I put the map in his hands. "The north track is unguarded between the second and third hour and the east wall is held by four wolves. If Bran comes over that border tonight he will walk through it."

Ronan looked at the map.

His face did not change.

"Get the warriors," he said to Colm. "Every wolf who is still in this house. Get them to the north track and the east wall and tell them to hold it until I come."

Colm went.

Ronan stood in the hall with the map in his hands.

"I should have seen it," he said.

"You did see it. You told her in front of the whole pack that the Blackthorn Pack stands with its Luna and she walked out of the hall." I put my hand on his arm. "She has been going to the Council since the spring. She went to Lorcan and traded us for a seat and then she came back and did a good thing and I let her come back because I wanted to believe her."

"I wanted to believe her too." He looked at the map. "I have known her for nine years."

"She has known you for nine years too. And she has been standing at the back of the hall for all of it, watching you be the Alpha, and she has been counting the days." I looked at the paper. "There is a thing in this map that is worse than the patrol routes."

"What?"

I turned it over.

There was a second note on the back of it, in Maeve's hand, and it was addressed to Lorcan.

It said: The healer leaves on the morning tide with the smuggler and the old man. She has the stone in her pocket and the book in her bag and the letter from the keeper. She will be on the north road by nightfall. Take her there and the Alpha will have nothing.

Ronan read it.

"She has given them my route," I said. "She has given them the boat and the old man and the stone and the letter and the road I am going to be on by nightfall."

Ronan put the paper down.

"Then you are not going north by the north road," he said.

"Ronan."

"You are not going north by the north road." He turned round. "Oisin knows every track on this coast and half of them are not on any map. He can put you on the water and take you up the coast and put you ashore at a cove that the Council does not know about."

"The Council has boats."

"The Council has two boats and Oisin has been running this coast for twenty years and he has a boat that is smaller than the Council's and faster than the Council's and he knows where the rocks are." He took my hand. "Fiadh. You are not going north by the road Maeve has written down."

I stood in the hall of the Blackthorn house with the silver on my wrist and the stone in my pocket.

"Right then," I said. "The water."

Down in the harbour, Oisin's horn sounded again.

And then it stopped.

Ronan and I looked at each other and went out through the door and down the hill.

The harbour was full of wolves.

Oisin was on the slip with his knife in his hand and his boat was still at the pier and there were four Council wolves standing in front of him with a paper.

And at the top of the slip, with her copper curls tied back and a Ravenscar flag on a pole, was Maeve.

"Healer," she called. "There is a warrant with the Council's seal on it and it names you as a fugitive from a Council judgment. You will come with us to the northern seat or we will take you."

I came down to the slip.

"Maeve," I said. "You were Beta of this pack for nine years."

"I was Beta of this pack for nine years and I got nothing for it." She looked at me with her brown eyes and there was no hate in them and no pity either. "I am going to be Alpha of this coast by winter and you are going to be in a cell in the north. That is what is going to happen. Come quietly and it will be easier."

I stood on the slip with the silver on my wrist and the stone in my pocket and the knife with the spiral on it in my belt.

And behind me, on the harbour wall, the fourteen wolves of the Blackthorn Pack came over it in a line.

Ronan stepped past me.

"You will not take my Luna off this slip," he said.

Maeve looked at the fourteen and at the four Council wolves and at the pack house above.

Then she did a thing I did not expect.

She laughed.

"Alpha," she said. "You have fourteen wolves and a hole in your roof and a Council warrant on your mate. I have eight wolves and a Ravenscar boat and a paper with a seal on it." She dropped the flag. "I am not going to fight you on the slip. I am going to go north and stand in front of the Council in fourteen days and tell them what I know. And you are going to have to work out what to tell them."

She turned and walked up the harbour road with the eight behind her.

And Oisin put his hand on my arm.

"Fiadh," he said. "The boat is loaded and the tide is turning. We go now or we do not go."

I looked at Ronan.

"Fourteen days," I said.

"Fourteen days," he said.

I got on the boat.