*Chapter 12** **The Note**

*

I read the note again. Then again. Then a fourth time, like the words might change if I looked at them long enough.

*I know what you did at the Weeping Spring.*

They didn't change.

I sat on the cold floor with my back against the door and held the paper in both hands. My heart was pounding so loudly I could hear it in my ears. The wind whistled through the crack in the window. Far below, the sea kept crashing against the rocks.

*Who?* I thought. *Who knows?*

My first thought was Selene. Of course it was Selene. Who else in this whole house hated me enough to creep up a dark tower at midnight?

But then I looked at the writing again, and I knew it wasn't her.

I had grown up with Selene's handwriting. I had seen it on notes she passed around at school, notes that said things like *the wolfless freak smells like onions* and *who would ever want her*. Her letters were round and fat and loopy, with little hearts over every *i*.

These letters were tall and thin and slanted. Pressed hard into the paper, like whoever wrote them was angry.

And besides, Selene didn't need to send me notes. She had whispered her threat right in my ear on the stairs, in front of everyone. Selene liked to see your face when she hurt you. A note in the dark wasn't her way.

So it was someone else.

Someone who knew what I had done that night. Someone who had seen me. Here, in Blackfang, a place I had only arrived in this afternoon.

I folded the note very small and pushed it deep into the bottom of my bag. Then I climbed back into the narrow bed and pulled the thin blanket up to my chin.

I didn't sleep at all.

---

When the grey light came through the cracked window, I got up and washed my face in the cold water from the jug. I put on my other dress, the brown one, the one I used to wear for work. I brushed my hair down over my neck. I touched the moonstone under my collar to make sure it was still there.

Then I went looking for the kitchen.

I don't know why. Maybe because it was the only place in the world where I had ever known what to do with my hands. When I was sad in Hollowmere, I scrubbed pots. When I was scared, I chopped onions. When I wanted to cry, I kneaded bread until my arms hurt, and somehow, by the time the dough was smooth, I felt better.

I needed my hands to be busy, or I was going to fall apart.

The kitchen was easy to find. I just followed my nose. Down the long tower stairs, through a narrow hallway, past a storeroom, and there it was. The smell of baking bread and frying bacon, and the noise of pots and voices.

It was huge. Ten times bigger than our kitchen at home. There were three big fireplaces, and long wooden tables, and copper pots hanging from hooks on the ceiling. At least twenty people were working, cooks and kitchen girls and boys carrying wood.

They all stopped when I walked in.

The noise died away. A girl dropped a spoon, and it clattered on the stone floor. Everyone stared at me.

A big woman came out from behind the main table. She was round and red faced, with thick arms covered in flour and a white cloth tied over her hair. She put her hands on her hips.

"Well," she said. "You're lost, I suppose."

"No, I…"

"The dining hall is that way. Breakfast is served at eight. You'll be fed with the family." She looked me up and down. "Or wherever they're feeding you."

"I'm not lost," I said. "I came to help."

The big woman's eyebrows went all the way up. Behind her, someone laughed.

"Help?" she said. "You're the Alpha's bride."

"Not yet," I said. "Not for three days. And I can't just sit in that tower all day doing nothing. I'll go crazy." I looked around the kitchen. "I worked in my father's kitchen for years. I can cook. I can clean. I can make bread. Please. Just give me something to do."

The big woman looked at me for a long time with her small, sharp eyes. I could see her thinking that this was some kind of trick. Or a joke. Or that I was crazy.

Then she walked over to a big table at the back. There was a huge pile of potatoes on it. Hundreds of them. A mountain of dirty potatoes.

"Peel those," she said. "All of them. Before lunch."

She thought I would say no. I could see it in her face. She thought the Alpha's bride would turn up her nose and walk out.

Instead, I rolled up my sleeves, picked up a knife, sat down on the stool, and started peeling.

The kitchen was quiet for a long time. I could feel them all watching me. Then, slowly, the noise came back. Pots banged. Someone started to sing. The kitchen boys went back to carrying wood.

I peeled and peeled. My hands knew the work. Round and round, the brown skin falling off in long curls, the white potato underneath. My mind went quiet for the first time since I had seen that note.

An hour later, the big woman came back. She looked at the bowl of peeled potatoes beside me. She picked one up and turned it over in her floury fingers. Then she looked at the long, thin curls of peel on the floor. Not one piece of potato wasted.

"Hm," she said.

That was all. Just *hm*. But when she walked away, she put a cup of hot tea and a piece of warm bread with butter beside my elbow. And she didn't say anything about it.

I almost cried right there over the potatoes.

---

I was finishing the last of the pile when I heard the kitchen girls talking.

"…came in last night, very late," one of them was whispering. She was young, with a round face and freckles, and she was stirring a big pot of soup. "From Ashfall. For the wedding. My brother was on the gate."

"Ashfall?" said the other girl. "After what happened? I heard their heir got rejected in front of everybody. Screaming on the ground like a pup."

"That's him. That's who came. The heir himself. His father sent him to make peace."

"He came here? To the house where she's living? The girl who rejected him?" The second girl laughed. "He must be crazy."

"My brother said he looked crazy. White as milk. Eyes all red. Walking around in the middle of the night like a ghost."

The knife stopped in my hand.

*Walking around in the middle of the night.*

I looked down at the long, curling potato skin hanging from my blade, and I felt cold all the way through.

Tall, thin letters. Slanted. Pressed hard into the paper.

I had seen that handwriting before. Of course I had. On the back of notes he slipped into my books at school. *Meet me at lunch.* *Don't let them bother you.* *You'll never be alone again, Mira.*

Dorian.

---

I went out into the garden after lunch to get some air.

It was a strange garden, full of wind. Low stone walls and tough little bushes that grew sideways because the sea wind pushed them that way. There was a path that went right along the edge of the cliff, with a low wall to stop you falling. I walked along it slowly with my arms around myself, looking out at the grey water.

I was thinking about what to do. Should I find him? Should I hide? Should I tell someone? But who would I tell? Kael? *Rule seven, Mira. Never lie to me.* How could I tell him without telling him everything?

"You came all this way and you're still hiding."

I spun around.

He was standing on the path behind me.

The kitchen girls were right. He looked terrible. His golden brown hair was messy and dirty. His face was pale and thin, with dark shadows under his blue eyes. His shirt was wrinkled, like he had slept in it. Or hadn't slept at all.

But it was still Dorian. Still the boy who had sat with me at lunch for six years. Still the face I had dreamed about.

"You wrote the note," I said.

He smiled. It wasn't a nice smile. It was crooked and tired and a little bit cruel. I had never seen Dorian smile like that before.

"You always were smart," he said. "Nobody else ever noticed that. But I did."

"What do you want?"

He came closer. I stepped back, and the low stone wall pressed against the back of my legs. Behind me was nothing but wind and sky and a long, long drop to the rocks.

"Do you want to know something funny, Mira?" he said. "After you ran out of my room that night, Selene didn't stay very long. She got what she wanted from me, and then she went home to her mother. And I couldn't sleep. I felt sick. I felt like I'd done something terrible." He laughed softly. "Imagine that. I felt bad about you."

I said nothing.

"So I went out walking. Just before dawn. I went to the edge of the old forest, because I thought maybe you went there. To your little spring. I thought I'd find you crying and I could say sorry." His eyes went dark. "And I did find you. Coming out of the trees."

My heart stopped.

"You had leaves in your hair," he said quietly. "Your coat was torn. You were walking funny. Like you were sore." He leaned in close. "And you smelled like a man, Mira. Not me. Someone else. All over you."

"Stop," I whispered.

"I didn't understand it at first. Mira Hale, the wolfless girl who wouldn't even let me kiss her properly for two years? Coming out of the forest at dawn smelling like that?" He shook his head. "And then I heard about the Alpha. Marking a woman in the woods. Losing her before sunrise. And then Selene shows up with a mark on her neck that I know for a fact wasn't there when she left my bed."

He was very close now. I could smell him. Sweat and fear and something sour, like sickness.

"I'm not stupid, Mira. Whatever happened at that spring, it wasn't my Selene."

"What do you want?" I said again. My voice was shaking.

He reached out and took my wrist.

His fingers were cold and damp. He didn't squeeze hard. He didn't have to. I was already standing with my back to the edge of a cliff.

"She rejected me," he said, and suddenly his voice cracked. For one second the cruel smile went away, and he looked like the boy I used to know. Lost and miserable. "Do you know what that feels like? It's like someone ripped my heart out through my chest. I can't eat. I can't sleep. Every time I close my eyes, I feel it tearing. And she's in this house, right now, laughing about it."

Then the cruel smile came back.

"And you're going to marry the Alpha. The great Kael Draven. You'll be the Luna of the biggest pack in the north." His fingers tightened on my wrist. "And I'm going to have nothing. Unless you help me."

"Help you how?"

"You always loved me, Mira. You know you did. You still do. I can see it in your face." He pulled me a little closer. "So be with me. Secretly. Nobody has to know. You marry him, you sleep in his house, you wear his ring. And when he's away, you come to me."

I stared at him. I couldn't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

"You're crazy," I whispered.

"I'm hurting," he said. "And you're the only thing that ever made me feel better." His blue eyes went cold and hard. "And if you say no, I'll go to your Alpha. I'll tell him his sweet little human bride isn't so sweet. I'll tell him I saw her coming out of the forest at dawn, after a night with some stranger. I'll tell him he's marrying a girl who's been used." He smiled. "How long do you think he'll keep you after that?"

I couldn't breathe. I couldn't think. The wind was howling around us, and the sea was crashing below, and Dorian's cold fingers were wrapped around my wrist.

And then I smelled it.

Cedar smoke. Rain on hot stone.

It came up the path on the wind, so strong that my knees almost gave out. Under my collar, the moonstone went suddenly ice cold. Under my hair, my mark gave one hard, heavy thump.

Dorian smelled it too. I saw him freeze. I saw the color go out of his face.

And behind him, from the end of the garden path, came a voice so low and so cold that it made the air itself go still.

"Take your hand off my bride."