Chapter 3

Serena’s POV

“She locked me in the storeroom,” Natalie sobbed. “I didn’t want to say. I’m so ashamed.”

I stood in the middle of the Moon Room with my veil in my hands and the whole pack staring at me, and I couldn’t make my mouth work.

“She told me the Alpha wanted a private word in the garden,” said my sister. She had wrapped herself in a shawl somebody had produced from nowhere. Her eyes were red. Her voice trembled just enough. “When I went out, she shut the door on me. I banged for hours. Nobody heard. I only got out when Auntie Lily found me at dawn.”

“That’s not true,” I said.

“Serena.” My mother’s voice cut like a razor. She had come in behind my father, in her jade qipao, and she looked at me as if I were a stranger who had stepped on her foot. “Don’t make it worse.”

“She asked me. Natalie asked me. She said she was meeting someone, and she wanted me to stand for fifteen minutes, and...”

“Fifteen minutes.” Elder Wee’s stick struck the floor. “She wanted you to stand in for her for fifteen minutes in a sacred rite?”

“Yes. She...”

“And you agreed.”

I opened my mouth. Closed it. There wasn’t a way to say yes that didn’t make me sound guilty.

“You could have refused,” said the old woman. Her eyes were flat as pebbles. “You are a grown woman. You are a member of this pack. You knew the rule. Silence, and the veil, and the Alpha’s choice. Every child here knows it.”

“I know.”

“Then why?”

I wanted to say, because she’s my sister. I wanted to say, because nobody ever asked me for anything before. I wanted to say, because I’ve loved him for eleven years.

I looked at Marcus.

He stood by the window with his arms folded and the dawn on his back, and his face was a locked door. He’d been so soft in the dark. He’d been so warm. Now he was looking at me the way he looked at council papers. Carefully. Coldly. Searching for the error.

“Serena,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Did you know it was me?”

“Yes.”

“Before you came?”

“Yes.”

“And you let me talk for six hours.” His voice was very even. “You let me tell you about my father. About the pack. About Natalie.” A muscle jumped in his jaw. “You let me think I was speaking to her.”

“I never said I was Natalie.”

“You never said you weren’t.”

“You said not to speak.”

“You could have written it on my hand.”

“I did write,” I whispered. “I wrote I’m here.”

“That isn’t a name.”

It hit harder than a slap.

Behind him, the sun climbed over the rainforest. The whole valley glowed gold. And in the silence, I heard my sister let out a tiny, satisfied breath.

Elder Wee raised her stick.

“The Veil Night is void,” she said. “The Alpha’s choice was made under false pretenses. A new rite will be held in three days, at the full moon.” She looked at me like I was a stain on the carpet. “As for Miss Lim. She has shamed her family and deceived her Alpha. The council will decide her punishment.”

“Banishment,” said a man at the back.

“Twelve months,” said someone else.

“With no wolf?” someone laughed. “She’ll be dead in a week.”

I couldn’t breathe.

“Enough,” said Marcus.

The whisper stopped like it had been cut.

“Miss Lim will leave the pack house today.” He didn’t look at me. “She will not be banished. She’s done nothing illegal, and I won’t have a woman driven out of her home for standing in a line.” His jaw flexed. “But she isn’t welcome in this hall.”

Not banished. Not welcome.

It was the kindest cruel thing anybody had ever said to me.

“Richard,” said Elder Wee. “Your daughter. What will you do?”

I looked at my father. Beta Richard Lim, big and gray and quiet, with his hat in his hands and his eyes on the floor. He had never once raised his voice at me. He had never once raised it for me, either.

“Serena,” he said, to the floor. “You should go to your aunt’s. For a while.”

“Dad.”

“Just for a while.”

“You are no daughter of mine,” said my mother, “until you apologize to your sister.”

Natalie stepped forward and put a hand on my arm. Her fingers were cool and gentle.

“It’s all right,” she whispered, too low for anyone else to hear. “You’ll be fine. You were always good at being invisible.”

I stared at her.

She smiled. It was the smile of someone who has won.

~

I packed in ten minutes.

One duffel bag. Three sketchbooks. A jar of pens. A toothbrush. My grandmother’s jade bracelet, which nobody else in my family remembered was mine. I left everything else. I left the pink bedspread and the school photos on the wall and the tiny origami crane that Natalie made me on my tenth birthday.

Aisyah was waiting in her little white Toyota at the bottom of the drive with the engine running and the hazards on. She took one look at my face, got out, and put her arms around me.

“Where’s your mum?” she said into my hair.

“Inside.”

“Your dad?”

“Inside.”

“Your sister?”

“Inside.”

“Good. I’ll come back later with a durian and a bad attitude.” She squeezed me hard. “You’re coming to mine. Auntie Salmah has already made the bed. She says you’re too thin.”

I laughed. It came out like a hiccup. Then my eyes stung and it was too late, and I cried against her shoulder in the car park of the Mandai Ridge pack house, in the golden morning, with the cicadas screaming and the sun bright on the puddles.

When I could talk, I said, “Give me one minute. I left my phone charger in the study.”

“I’ll get it.”

“No. I’ll go. I just need a minute.”

She let me go.

I didn’t have a phone charger in the study. I needed a place to breathe. I slipped around the side of the building, down the little path that runs between the bougainvillea and the kitchen wall, where nobody ever goes.

I stopped.

Someone was standing on the far side of the hedge. A woman. Her back was to me, her shawl gone, her dark hair swinging as she paced. She held a phone to her ear.

Natalie.

“It’s done,” she was saying, low and fast. “Yes. She’s out. They’ve set the second rite for the full moon. I’ll be chosen. There’s no one else.”

A crackle, on the other end. A man’s voice, deep and pleased.

“Good girl, Nat.”

“You said nobody would get hurt.”

“Nobody will. Not if you do what I say.”

“And the east gate?”

“You’ll open it on the night. Once you’re Luna, nobody will question you. My men will do the rest.” The voice dropped, warm and dark. “You’re going to be a queen, baby. And we’ll have the whole ridge.”

My blood turned to ice.

I took a step backward. My foot caught on a fallen branch.

It cracked like a gunshot.

Natalie spun around.