Chapter 124: The New Moon

The new moon came on the twenty-eighth of October and it came without a moon.

I stood in the round room under the circle with the whole of the Luna's line around me and the eleven Alphas of the north at the top of the stair and the stones cold in the ground.

Elias was in the corner of the room on a bed of blankets with his side wrapped and his arms wrapped and his face gray.

"He cannot stay here," Ada of the north said. "The new moon is tonight and the wolf is going to run and there is nowhere in this territory that is far enough."

"He is not going to run," I said.

"He is the cursed wolf and the curse is in the pack and the pack is in the ground and the new moon is in the sky." Ada of the north put her hand on the table. "He is going to run. And when he runs he is going to run to the stone and the stone is spent and there is nothing to hold him."

I looked at Elias.

He was asleep. He had been asleep since noon and Maeve had given him something for the pain and he had not woken and the mark on my shoulder was warm and steady.

"Then we hold him," I said.

"You cannot hold a wolf on the new moon."

"I can hold my mate," I said. "And I can put him in the circle and I can stand in front of him and I can tell the whole of the pack to stand around him and I can hold the silver and the chain and the whole of it."

Ada of the north looked at me for a long time.

"The circle will hold him," she said. "The circle is the heart of the territory and the heart of the territory is the ground and the ground is older than the curse. Put him in the circle and put the stones around him and put the pack around the stones and the ground will hold him until the moon goes down."

"Then that is what we do," I said.

We carried him up the stair and out into the clearing and we put him in the middle of the circle on the flat stone with the two stones beside him and the pack stood around the circle in a ring.

The new moon rose at six o'clock and there was no light in it and the whole of the territory was dark.

And then Elias woke.

He sat up on the flat stone and his eyes were amber and they were not his.

"Wren," he said. "Get back."

"I am not going back."

"Wren, I can feel it. I can feel the ground and the stones and the whole of the pack and it is all pulling." He put his hand on his chest. "The curse is in the pack and the pack is in the circle and the moon is up and I am the keeper and the keeper is the thing the land wants."

"Then give it to the land," I said.

"I cannot. The stone is spent."

"Then hold it until the stone is not spent." I put my hands on his face. "Elias. Look at me. I am going to Boise tomorrow and I am going to bring back the fourth stone and I am going to put it in this circle at the full moon and the whole of it is going to be finished. But tonight you have to hold it. Tonight you have to stay in this circle and not run and not change and not give the land anything."

He looked at me.

"I do not know if I can," he said.

"Then I will hold you," I said.

I sat down on the flat stone beside him and put my arms around him and the whole of the pack sat down in the moss around the circle and the whole of the Luna's line sat down and the eleven Alphas of the north sat down and the keeper sat down and the whole of the territory sat in the dark and held the new moon.

It was the longest night of my life.

Elias shook. He shook for six hours and he did not change and he did not run and the mark on my shoulder burned the whole of it and the rope between us was tight and it did not break.

At midnight he said a name.

It was not my name and it was not his mother's name. It was a name I had never heard and he said it twice and then he said my sister and then he said the field.

"Elias," I said.

He looked at me and his eyes were amber and they were his.

"The boy," he said. "The boy in the field. He is here."

I looked around the circle.

There was nothing in the circle but the pack and the stones and the dark.

"There is nobody here," I said.

"He is here," Elias said. "He is standing behind the stone and he is waiting for me." He looked at me. "He has been waiting for me since June and he is going to take me with him if I do not hold on."

I held him tighter.

"Then hold on," I said.

The whole of the night went past and the whole of the pack sat in the dark and at five in the morning the sky went gray and the new moon went down and Elias stopped shaking.

He lay on the flat stone with his head in my lap and his breath going slow.

"It is over," he said.

"It is over."

"The boy is gone."

"The boy is gone."

He looked up at me.

"I am going to Boise with you," he said.

"No."

"Wren."

"You are going to stay in this circle with the pack and you are going to heal and I am going to go to Boise with Silas and Dale and Ruth and June and we are going to bring back the fourth stone." I put my hand on his face. "And then we are going to stand in this circle at the full moon and the whole of it is going to be finished."

He looked at me.

"And if you do not come back?" he said.

"Then you are going to be the keeper of this circle and you are going to give the land its drop every full moon for the rest of your life and you are going to keep the curse out of the line." I put my forehead against his. "But I am going to come back."

And then June came running into the clearing with a paper in her hand.

"Wren," she said. "The wire came an hour ago. It is from Boise. The fourth stone is not in the vault."

I stood up.

"What?"

"The fourth stone is not in the vault. The chief clerk took it out of the vault on the night he was arrested and he gave it to a rider and the rider is on the road." She looked at me. "The rider is coming here and he has forty wolves with him and he is going to put the stone in the circle at the full moon and he is going to use it to take the land."

I stood in the circle.

"Who?" I said.

"The rider is the archivist," June said. "And the archivist is not a wolf of the Council. He is a wolf of the north and he has been the chief clerk's man for thirty years."