Chapter 63: The Bond That Cried

The car went past the mill and up the road to the Council house and we stood in the loft and listened to it go.

"Eight hours," Ronan said. "Eight hours early and nobody knew he was coming but the driver and the outriders."

"He knew the hearing was at noon and he came in the dark so that nobody would see him arrive." I sat down on the floorboards. "That is a man who does not want to be seen walking into a Council house."

"Or a man who wants to be seen walking into it and does not want anyone to see what he does in the night first."

Oisin came up the ladder.

"There is a light on in the top of the Council house," he said. "One window. It has been on since the car went past."

We sat in the loft and watched the light.

Around four in the morning I felt it.

It came through the bond without warning, the way the pain had come in the sickroom, but it was not pain. It was a pulling, a hard steady pulling, as though a rope had been tied round my chest and somebody at the other end of it had started to walk away.

I put my hand flat on my breastbone.

Ronan was on the other side of the loft with his back to me and his knees up, and he had his arms folded and his head down and he had not said anything for an hour.

"Ronan," I said.

He did not turn round.

"Ronan. What is it?"

"Nothing."

"That is not nothing. That is a rope tied round my chest and somebody pulling." I got up and crossed the loft and knelt down in front of him. "Look at me."

He looked at me. His face in the lamplight was grey and his eyes were red.

"I have been sitting here for an hour thinking about what happens at noon," he said. "And I have worked it out and it does not go well."

"Tell me."

"Elara says the chamber has one door and a bolt on the outside and a cell under it with iron rings in the wall." He looked at me. "Soren is in that house tonight and he came in the dark and the elders are already in the town and Maeve has nine names on a paper. And the only thing we have is a box and a page and a ledger and a healer who shifted for the first time in her life two nights ago and cannot do it again on purpose."

"I can do it on purpose."

"You have done it once. In a fight. With a wolf on your chest." He shook his head. "That is not the same as standing up in a chamber and calling it out."

"Ronan. I can do it."

"That is not what I am afraid of." He looked at me. "I am afraid of what happens if they take you. There is a cell under that chamber with iron rings in the wall and a bolt on the door, and if they get you in there I will not be able to get you out. I will be standing in a corridor with a writ on my head and no pack and a bond that will be pulling at me through a stone wall and I will not be able to do a thing."

"Then we do not let them take me."

"That is not a plan. That is a wish."

I sat down on the floor beside him.

"Then tell me what the plan is," I said.

He did not answer.

"I have been the one with the plan for a month," I said. "I have been the one with the tins and the needles and the paste and the stubbornness. And I am tired, Ronan. I am tired and I have a wolf in my chest that I do not know how to use and a mother who lied to me for twenty two years and a Council that has been watching my family for a hundred." My voice cracked. "So tell me what the plan is. Because I have run out."

He put his arm round me and pulled me in against his chest.

"We go to the chamber at noon," he said, "and we put the box and the page and the ledger on the table and we tell them what we know, and if they will not listen then we make them listen. And if they take you, I will be standing in the corridor outside that cell and I will not leave, and I will find a way in if I have to take the whole house down with my hands."

"That is still a wish."

"It is the best I have got." He put his chin on the top of my head. "I am not a healer. I do not have tins and needles and I do not know how to fix a thing that is broken. I am an Alpha and I have spent six months being a bad one and I have forgotten how to be a good one." He was quiet for a moment. "But I know how to stand in a room and not leave. That is the one thing I have never forgotten."

The pull in my chest eased a little.

We sat like that until the sky went grey.

At six Nessa went out to the market with a basket and came back at seven with bread and news.

"The town is full of Council wolves," she said. "They came in the night and they are on every corner. And there is a thing in the market that everyone is talking about." She sat down on the floor. "There was a car from the north and it brought a wolf and the wolf is called Soren and he is in the Council house. And the elders have been going in and out of it all night."

"And Maeve?"

"Maeve is in the house too. She went in at midnight and she has not come out." Nessa looked at me. "Healer. There is a wolf at the door of the Council house who has been asking for you. He has a paper in his hand and he has been asking since dawn."

"Who?"

"I do not know. He is not Council. He is not from any pack on this coast. He is standing at the door with a paper and he is asking for the healer with the golden hair."

I looked at Ronan.

"Then I had better go and see what he wants," I said.