Chapter 100: The Rogue's Price

We came up out of the shaft with the whole of the pack behind us and the moon going down and the horn sounding over the water.

I came up on four feet.

It was the strangest thing in the world and the most ordinary. I had been a wolf before and I had been a man for the whole of the spring and the summer, and coming up that shaft on four feet with the whole of the pack behind me and Clara's hand on my shoulder was like coming home to a house I had forgotten I owned. The stone was under my claws and the salt was in my nose and the whole of the shore was sharp and clear.

Rook was on the shelf with his coat off and his pale grey eyes on the water.

"Three ships," he said. "They came in on the tide and they have not sent a boat and they are sitting at the harbour mouth with their sails down. There is a thing on the deck of the first one that is not a man and it has been standing at the rail since midnight."

Clara said, "Vaughan."

"Vaughan." Rook looked at me and then at the stone wolf and then at the pack. "There is a thing I have to say and I have been sitting on it since the pier and I am going to say it now before the sun comes up." He put his hand in his coat and took out a small wooden box and opened it. There was a piece of grey stone in it, the size of a man's thumb, and it was warm and it hummed. "This is the first fragment. The one the old Alpha put in the cup. The one that came to this village in the box in the spring. I took it off the priest's ship in the winter and I have been carrying it since."

The shelf was quiet.

"The price," Rook said. "I said on the pier that the debt was forgiven and I meant it. But there is a thing I want and I am not going to pretend I do not want it. I want the first-shift fragment."

Clara said, "That is in me. It has been in me since the night I shifted on the island."

"It is in you and it is the thing that makes you the heir. The first shift on the island, the fragment that came to you when you opened your eyes on the wolf's table. It is the thing the deed names and the wall names and the whole of it names." Rook looked at her. "And it is the thing that will close the coast. The stone wolf has the whole of the old wolf in it and it needs the first-shift fragment to wake. Without it the stone wolf is a stone and the coast is open and Vaughan takes the whole of it."

Clara said, "And if I give it to you?"

"You do not give it to me. You put it in the stone wolf and the stone wolf wakes and the coast is closed and the whole of it is finished." Rook put the box on the rock. "And I take the fragment that is in this box and I put it in the stone wolf with it and the two of them together are what the stone wolf needs to wake."

Nina said, "That is not the price. That is a thing you are giving."

"It is a thing I am giving and it is a thing I am asking for," Rook said. "I am asking for the first-shift fragment to be put in the stone wolf with mine and I am asking to be the one who puts it there. I have been carrying a fragment since the winter and I have been carrying my father's name since I was nine years old and I want to be the one who puts it in the stone wolf and closes the coast." He looked at Clara. "That is the price. Not the fragment. The putting."

Clara looked at him for a long moment.

"You want to be the one who closes the coast," she said.

"I want to be the one who finishes the thing my father started," Rook said. "He made the lock and he died in a ditch and I have been hating the whole of this coast for twenty years. I want to be the one who puts the fragment in the stone wolf and wakes it and closes the coast and finishes it."

The shelf was quiet.

And the stone wolf said, in my head, in the voice of the white room: It can be done. The fragment in the box and the first-shift fragment in the woman and the stone wolf between them. But it must be done at the low tide with the whole of the pack on the shingle and the keeper on four feet and the thing in the north at the door.

Clara said, "Then it is done."

Rook looked at her.

"You are giving me the thing I have been wanting for twenty years," he said.

"I am giving you the thing you have been wanting and I am asking you for a thing in return," Clara said. "When the coast is closed and the stone wolf is awake and the thing in the north is shut out, you will stand on that shingle with the pack and you will say my grandfather's name out loud and you will put it on the wall with the rest of them."

Rook looked at her.

"Andrew who kept the boat," he said.

"Andrew who kept the boat," Clara said. "And Colin who was the Beta of Loch nan Sionnach and who died in a ditch on the road to Oban. Both of them. On the wall. With the rest of them."

Rook put his hand out.

"Done," he said.

Clara took it.

And out on the water the horn sounded again and the whole of the shelf went cold.

The stone wolf stood up on its four feet and lifted its head and said, in the voice of the white room: The tide is at the lowest. The thing in the north is at the door. The keeper is on four feet and the mate is at his side and the pack is on the shingle. Go up. Go up now.

We went up the shelf and across the shingle and up the shore, and the whole of the pack was on the shingle in a line from the channel to the point with their lanterns and their hooks and their faces set, and out on the water there were three ships with their sails down and their lamps low and a thing on the deck of the first one that was not a man.

And on the shingle at the head of the shore, standing with her shawl round her shoulders and her chin up and the mark on her wrist dull grey, was Ivy.

She came forward through the pack and stopped in front of Clara.

"Mistress Clara," she said. "There is a thing I have to tell you and I have been keeping it since the night of the raid and I am going to tell it now before the ships come in."

Clara knelt down in front of her.

"Tell me," she said.

"The night of the raid," Ivy said. "When the rogues came up out of the water and the whole of the village was on the green. I was on the wall with my brother and I saw a wolf come out of the pack house yard. It was a copper wolf and it had a mark on its shoulder and it went down to the shore." She looked at Clara. "And there was a man with it. He was standing in the yard of the pack house and he had a lantern in his hand and he was watching it go. He was not the Alpha. The Alpha was the wolf. He was a man in a good coat and he had a chain on his belt."

The shingle was quiet.

"Which man, Ivy?" Clara said.

"The one who has been standing on the cliff with the Council," Ivy said. "The one with the grey hair and the chain of keys."

The shingle went cold.

And out on the water, Vaughan's ship came in.