Chapter 8

Wren's POV

I don't sleep much that first night either, though it's a different kind of sleeplessness than the one I had back in Ashgrove. Back there, sleep stayed away because I was scared of what the next day would take from me. Here, it stays away because my head is too full of Corwin's voice saying to make you forget, over and over, a sentence with no clean edges I can find to stop turning it over.

The room they've given me doesn't help. It's bigger than anything I've slept in for five years, a real bed instead of a cot, a window that looks out over the valley instead of a wall, and none of it feels like mine yet. I keep waiting for someone to walk in and tell me there's been a mistake, that I'm meant to be down the hall in whatever room they keep for staff, not here, not somewhere with a view and a lock on the inside instead of the outside.

I test the lock twice before I let myself believe it, running my thumb over the little brass latch like it might disappear if I look away. It doesn't. Nobody comes to correct the error, because there isn't one.

Sable comes by around midnight anyway, a mug of something warm in each hand, and doesn't ask before she sits on the end of my bed like we've known each other for years instead of one day.

"Figured you weren't sleeping," she says, handing one over. "Nobody sleeps after a Corwin diagnosis. He has a gift for saying the worst possible sentence in the calmest possible voice."

"Does he do that a lot? Say worst possible sentences?"

"Only when they're true." She wraps both hands around her own mug, blowing across the top of it. "For what it's worth, I don't think he's wrong. I've been in this pack my whole life, Wren. I've seen plenty of bound wolves. None of them reacted to a ward line like you did today."

I don't have an answer for that, so I drink instead, something spiced and faintly sweet that I don't recognize, and let the quiet sit between us for a while before I finally start unpacking the single bag I brought, more to have something to do with my hands than out of any real need.

That's when I find it.

Folded small, tucked into the lining at the bottom of the bag where I never would have thought to look, is a slip of paper I don't remember putting there. My hands go cold before I even unfold it, some instinct warning me before my eyes confirm it, and when I finally smooth it open there's Maren's handwriting, cramped and hurried, like she wrote it fast and didn't want to be caught doing it.

He met with men from outside the pack the week before the fire. Three of them. He had me clear the study and lock the door. I never told anyone because I was afraid, and I've been afraid every day since. I don't know who they were. I only remember what he called them, once, when he thought no one was listening. The Hollow ones. Be careful, Wren. Whatever you are to them, I don't think it's finished.

Sable notices my face before I say a word.

"What," she says, already reaching for the note. "What is it?"

I hand it over without speaking, because I don't trust my voice not to shake, and I watch her read it twice, her expression sliding from curiosity into something much harder, much more alert, by the time she reaches the end.

"The Hollow ones," she repeats, slow. "That mean anything to you?"

"Nothing," I say. "I've never heard it before in my life."

Sable folds the note carefully, like it's something fragile, and stands, already moving toward the door with a purpose that makes my stomach drop all over again.

"Rhydian needs to see this tonight," she says. "Not tomorrow. Tonight."

"Wait." I catch her sleeve before she reaches the door, and she stops, patient, waiting. "Who's Maren to you? I mean, you don't know her. Why would she risk writing something like that down at all, let alone hiding it in my bag?"

"Because she cares about what happens to you," Sable says, gentler than I've heard her be yet. "People don't usually risk things for other people unless they do."

"She's worked in that house for thirty years. If Callum ever found that note—"

"He didn't." Sable crouches down in front of me, meeting my eyes directly. "She got it to you. That's what matters right now. And whatever it costs her if he ever finds out, that was her choice to make, not something you did to her by existing. You didn't ask anyone to risk anything for you, Wren. That's not how blame works."

I don't have an answer for that, not one that doesn't threaten to undo the careful, brittle control I've been holding onto since Corwin's exam this afternoon, so I just nod, and let her go, and sit alone in the dark for a long while afterward with Maren's handwriting seared into my memory even after I've folded the note away, turning the phrase over and over. The Hollow ones. A name that means nothing to me and, judging by the look on Sable's face, meant something very specific and very bad to her.

I don't fall asleep until close to dawn, and when I finally do, I dream of smoke.