Mag-log inAmma's Point of ViewI'm scrolling through my phone when a knock comes, and without waiting for an answer, the door opens.Jeremy walks in, and I'm on my feet immediately. The floor is cold against my soles, and the room tips once, then steadies, and I start across it on legs that feel like they belong to someone else. He stands there in the frame with a hand on the wood, and he's wearing one of those dark hoodies he owns, and I stop dead.His face. Oh, goddess.The left eye is swollen almost shut and purple as a plum. A split in the lip has been stitched with three black knots. There's a long bruise along the jaw, and another beneath the collar, yellowing at the edges, in the shape of a hand. He holds himself crooked, as though every breath has to be negotiated."Jeremy.""Hello, Amma." He tries to smile.My voice goes quiet because I don’t know what to say to him. Without thinking too much, I'm across the last few steps with both hands out."I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so, so sorry
Amma's Point of ViewI told him the truth. Every word I said to Evander was true. I did ask Jeremy to fetch my pills. He did go into the lower town.I just left out the rest.I left out the other thing he was doing. The plan to get Isa and me out of this pack before anything else can happen to us.If I'd said so, he'd be dead by morning. Or worse, he'd be alive, and I'd be locked in this room with a guard on the door until I was old.So I said pills.A knock comes, and the door opens before I can answer, and I know without turning my head. The air changes, feeling like it’s warm, and the scent is intoxicating."Evander.""Amma."I turn my head, and he’s standing just inside the door with the corridor light behind him, in the same dark clothes, with his hair rumpled and his sleeves shoved to the elbow. There are flecks of something rust-colored on his left cuff. His knuckles are scraped."What did you do to Jeremy?" I snap, and he flinches, very slightly."He's alive.""That isn't what
Evander's Point of View"Who are you working for?"Jeremy doesn't answer. He sits in the iron chair at the center of the cellar with his wrists bound behind him and his head hanging, and a thread of spit and blood swings from his lower lip. The bulb overhead buzzes. Water drips somewhere in the dark behind him, and the room smells of damp stone and rust and sweat.I crouch in front of him. I take his chin and lift it."I'll ask again.""I don't know what you're talking about."His voice is a croak. His left eye has swollen to a slit. There's a long bruise darkening along his jaw, and his shirt has been torn open at the collar, and the neat, rumpled man who sat in my mate's room is nowhere in the face I'm looking at."Who sent you?""Nobody.""Who paid you?""Nobody sent me. I came with her. You know I came with her."I stand. I step back.Troy, by the door, doesn't move. He's got his arms folded and his eyes on the wall above my head, and I can feel him not looking at me. He's seen me
Amma's Point of ViewShe's brought dinner with her after almost an hour. It's a covered dish, still warm, a mash of lentils and rice with fried onions on top, and a wedge of flatbread, and a little jar of something green. I smell it, and my stomach roars."Where did you get this? Should I even be eating this?""I may have bribed the kitchen girl. And fuck rules, you need to eat something you at least like."I can't help but laugh.“Which kitchen girl?”"Her name is Kehlani? Or Kelly? The one with the gap in her teeth makes a mean soup, but she's not allowed near the stove until the doctor clears her." She hands me a spoon. "Eat. All of it. I'll count the grains."We eat on the bed; the tray balanced on my knees and Mirabel tucked cross-legged at my feet. I'd forgotten that it was possible to want food. The light fades to blue. A nurse comes and goes, and Mira charms her out of a second blanket, and the room smells of onion and cumin and, faintly, of her shampoo.When the bowl is empty
Amma's Point of ViewWaking up feels like climbing out of a well with stones in my pockets.First the weight, my arms, my legs, my head, all of it pressed into the mattress as though someone has poured lead into my bones. Then the dry mouth, the taste of metal. Then a faint ache in my chest, dull now, though.Something moves beside the bed, and I try to force my eyes to open.A chair creaks. A page turns. And a voice, low and tired and familiar, says, "If you're awake, I can tell, so you might as well open your eyes."I smile before I've done it because I know that impatient tone."Hey," I croak. "You.""Hey, you."Mirabel's sitting by the bed with a magazine open on her knee and her shoes off, her stockinged feet tucked up under her on the chair. She's changed her cardigan. Her hair is clean and bundled up in a knot, and there's a plastic bag of fruit on the bedside table, a paper cup, a tray with a lid."How long?" I ask."Most of the day. It's evening. You're due another bag in an
Mirabel's Point of ViewI look at him, and I can't think of anything to say.It's absurd. I'm a doctor. I can talk through anything. But my mouth is dry, and my heart is going so fast it's tripping over itself, and every thought I own has gone out of my head like water out of a cracked cup.His hand is around mine. It's warm. It's callused across the palm, broad and steady, and I don't understand why my fingers have stopped fighting it.I make the mistake of looking up.His eyes are hazel. I didn’t notice that the first time. They're green at the rim and amber toward the middle, and there's a scatter of darker flecks around the pupil like sparks that have cooled. He's frowning at me. It's a stubborn frown, and under it his gaze doesn't waver. It's fixed on my face as if I'm the only thing in the corridor.‘Oh,’ my wolf breathes. ‘Oh, those eyes.’‘Please don't make me look at them.’‘Look at them. He is so beautiful.’‘I'm not looking.’‘You are.’ She's squealing. I can feel her, a fr







