Chapter 146: A New Enemy

We went to the gap.

The truck was stopped in the road with its engine running and its lights on and there were twelve wolves in the back of it and they were sitting down and they were not moving.

And in front of the truck there was a woman.

She was old and she was small and she had gray hair and a coat that had been mended in a dozen places and a burn on her left hand that went from the wrist to the fingers.

She was standing in the road with her hands at her sides.

“Alpha,” she said. “I am the keeper of the room and I have brought the twelve home.”

I stood in the road.

“Who are you?” I said.

“My name is Mary,” she said. “And I am the miller’s daughter’s granddaughter and I have been the keeper of the room since 1939.”

The road was quiet.

“You have been the keeper of the room for forty years,” I said.

“I have been the keeper of the room for forty years,” Mary said. “I was taken to the room in 1939 when I was nineteen years old and I was put in it with the rest of them and I was the only one who could still speak and the Council made me the keeper.” She held up her burned hand. “This is what the silver does. I have been cutting the wolves in that room for forty years and I have been keeping them alive and I have been talking to them about the circle every night.”

I looked at the twelve in the truck.

“And you brought them here,” I said.

“I brought them here,” Mary said. “Because the Alpha of the Alphas was coming to open the room and I knew that if the Council got them back they would be put in a different room in a different building and the whole of it would go on.” She put her hand in her coat and took out a key. “So I took them out of the room and I put them in a truck and I drove them here and I am going to give them to the Alpha of the Circle Pack.”

I took the key.

“Why?” I said. “Why would you bring them to me?”

“Because you are the Luna,” Mary said. “And because the whole of the line is in this territory and the whole of the room has been waiting for the line since 1902.” She put her hand on the truck. “And because there is a thing I have to tell you that nobody has told you. About the room. About the silver. About the whole of it.”

“Say it,” I said.

Mary looked at me.

“The silver is not from the cursed wolves,” she said. “It is from the line. The Council has been cutting the Luna’s line for eighty-five years and using the blood for silver and the whole of it has been a lie. The curse does not make silver. The line makes silver. The Luna’s line has silver in its blood and the Council has been taking it since 1891.”

The road was silent.

“The line has silver in its blood,” I said.

“The line has silver in its blood,” Mary said. “Every wolf of the fourth daughter’s line has silver in the blood and the Council has been cutting it out of them and putting it in the wire and the knuckles and the blades. And the whole of it has been going on since 1891.”

I stood in the road.

And then Silas came up beside me.

“Alpha,” he said. “There is a thing I have to tell you. About the silver. About the room. About the whole of it.”

I turned around.

“Say it,” I said.

“I have known about the room since 1965,” Silas said. “I have been in the room. I have signed the paper that kept it open and I have carried the silver out of it and I have put it in the wire and the knuckles and the blades.” He put his hand on his chest. “And there is a thing about the silver that I have never told anybody. The silver is not the only thing the Council has been taking from the line. The Council has been taking the children.”

The road was quiet.

“The children,” I said.

“The children,” Silas said. “The room has been breeding the line since 1902 and the children have been taken out of the room and put in packs across the territory and the whole of it has been going on for eighty-five years.” He put his hand on his chest. “And I have been the one who placed them. I have been the Council’s pen and I have been the Council’s hand and I have been taking children out of a room and putting them in packs and I have never once asked what happened to them.”

I stood in the road.

And then a wolf came out of the trees.

It was a wolf in a black coat and it had a rifle and it was not a Council wolf and it was not a north wolf.

It was the assassin.

“Alpha,” the assassin said. “The Council has sent me to take the keeper and the twelve and the keeper of the room.” He raised the rifle. “And I am not going to ask twice.”

The whole of the line moved.

And then Mary said, “Wait.”

She came forward.

“I know you,” she said.

The assassin stopped.

“You are the boy from the room,” Mary said. “You are the one they took out in 1954 and put in the north. You are the one who was born in the room and taken out of it and raised by the Alphas of the north.” She put her hand out. “You are the line. You are the fourth daughter’s line. And the Council has been using you since you were a child.”

The assassin stood in the road with the rifle in his hands.

And then he lowered it.

“I do not know what I am,” he said.

“You are the line,” Mary said. “And you have come to take the wrong wolf.”

The assassin looked at me.

And then he turned the rifle and fired it into the air and threw it into the snow.

“The Council can find another wolf,” he said. “I am done.”

He turned and walked into the trees.

The road was quiet.

And then June came up the road with a wire in her hand.

“Wren,” she said. “The Council has called the hearing. It is not in a month. It is tomorrow. And the Council has ruled that the whole of the territory is to be taken and the whole of the line is to be put in the room.”

I stood in the road.

“Then we go to Boise tonight,” I said.

“We go to Boise tonight,” June said.

And then Silas said, “Alpha. There is a thing about the room that I have not told you. About the children. About the whole of it.”

“What thing?” I said.

Silas put his hand in his coat and took out a paper.

“The room has a register,” he said. “It is not the Council register. It is the room’s register and it has every child in it. It has the date and the name and the pack the child was sent to and the whole of it.” He held out the paper. “And there is a name on the first page that you should see.”

I took the paper.

The first page had one name on it and the name was in a hand I did not know and the date was 1902.

The name was Silas.