Chapter 160: The Old Lore

I sat down on the edge of the bed.

"Padraig," I said. "Say the whole of it. From the beginning. And do not leave anything out because you think I cannot take it."

Padraig put the book on the table and sat down in the chair by the fire.

"The reversal is the oldest rite in the book," he said. "It is older than the breaking and it is older than the binding and it was made by the first of the old blood before he made any of the others. It is a rite for a false bond that has been broken and has left a mark and it brings the bond back into a wolf and breaks it clean."

"Into which wolf?"

"Into the wolf it was taken from." Padraig looked at me. "Your mate."

Ronan sat up.

"Into me," he said.

"Into you." Padraig put his hands on his knees. "Alpha. The false bond was tied to your life and when it came out of you it took a piece of you with it. That is why your shoulder would not close and that is why you have been tired since the spring and that is why a keeper could read to you for two days and make you stop eating. There is a hole in you where the bond was and a hole in a wolf is a thing that other wolves can put things into."

Ronan looked at his hands.

"And the reversal closes it," he said.

"The reversal brings the bond back and breaks it clean and closes the hole." Padraig looked at him. "It is the only cure for what was done to you and it is the only thing in this world that will make you whole again."

The room was quiet.

"And it needs a founder-blooded wolf's willing mark," I said.

"It needs a founder-blooded wolf's willing mark." Padraig looked at me. "The mark is made on the wolf who is bound and it is made by the wolf of the blood and it is made willingly. Not in fear and not in anger. Willingly."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Then I can make it," I said.

"Healer." Padraig leaned forward. "There is a thing about the willing mark that you have to understand. It is not a mark you make with a knife and it is not a mark you make with a word. It is a mark you make with your own blood and your own name and your own choice and when it is made you do not get to take it back."

"I made a mark in the cellar."

"You made a mark in the cellar and it took your hair." Padraig looked at me. "The reversal mark will not take your hair. It will take something else."

"What?"

"The book does not say." Padraig's old face was grey. "The book says the founder who makes the reversal mark gives up the thing she holds dearest. And it does not say what that is and it does not say whether she gets it back."

The room was quiet.

Ronan stood up.

"Then she does not make it," he said.

"Ronan."

"No." He turned round. "I have been in a false bond and I have been in a cellar and I have been read to by a keeper for two days. I am not going to sit in a room and watch my mate give up the thing she holds dearest to close a hole in my chest."

"Ronan."

"Fiadh. I have been a coward in a yard and I have been a fool in a chamber and I have been a wolf who stopped eating because a book told him to." He came and stood in front of me. "And I am not going to be a wolf who lets his mate make a mark that might take her."

I looked at him.

"Ronan," I said. "Sit down."

He sat down.

"Padraig," I said. "The thing I hold dearest. Is it a thing I have to give up or a thing I have to give?"

Padraig looked at me for a long moment.

"That is a very good question," he said.

"Answer it."

"The book says give up." Padraig looked at the fire. "But the book was written by a keeper and the keepers have been writing books for two hundred years and every one of them has been written to make a founder do what the keepers wanted." He looked up. "And I have been a healer for forty years and I have learned one thing about a book. You read the words and then you work out what they were afraid of."

I sat on the edge of the bed.

"Then I am not going to work it out from a book," I said. "I am going to work it out in the doing."

Ronan looked at me.

"Fiadh," he said.

"Ronan. I have been a healer for ten years and I have never once made a mark I did not understand and I have never once made a mark in fear." I put my hand on his face. "And I am not going to make this one in fear either. I am going to make it when I know what it is and when I know what it costs and when I am standing in the place where it has to be made."

"And when will that be?"

I looked at Padraig.

"Where does the reversal have to be made?" I said.

Padraig looked at the book.

"It does not say," he said. "It says the place where the bond was tied."

The room was quiet.

"Then it is the house of the north," I said. "In the room at the top of the house where Elara put her hand on his chest."

And down in the harbour, a horn sounded.

It was a Council horn and it came from the water and it came three times and stopped.

I went to the window.

There was a boat coming into the harbour and it had a Council flag at the mast and there were wolves on the deck and there was a wolf at the front of them with a lantern in his hand.

"Who is it?" Ronan said.

I looked at the boat.

"It is the keeper Eamon," I said. "And he is not alone."