The wolf was gone by sunrise. Only a patch of flattened grass showed where it had been standing all night.
I checked it twice, then told myself I was being dumb.
The car was already idling in the drive with the trunk open.
Doyle: Open it.
Maeve: It's a dress and a toothbrush. I'm not smuggling a wolf in there.
Doyle: Open it anyway.
Doyle: No calls. No texts. You don't talk to anybody but us all day.
Maeve: My whole social life is one stable hand who smells like hay.
Doyle: I know exactly who it is. That's why I said it.
Roderick: At the keep you keep your head down and your mouth shut. If someone speaks to you, you answer once and then you stop.
Maeve: So the same rules as home, but with better carpets.
Perrin: Did you hear? They're saying he's actually going to choose this time. The prince.
Perrin: Every pack is bringing their best. And we're bringing us.
Perrin: If he picks someone from a rival pack, that's a war. If he picks nobody, that's worse. The court has been waiting two years.
Maeve: Sounds like a scheduling problem, honestly.
Perrin: Don't. Please don't be funny about this. This is my whole life.
She chewed her thumbnail down to the quick after that and didn't say another word for twenty minutes.
Three hours of that. Perrin talked about seating and curtsies and the right way to bow without falling over.
Roderick said nothing at all. Doyle said plenty with his eyes in the mirror.
Doyle: You've been off since the envelope showed up.
Maeve: I've been off since I was born. You're just noticing now.
Doyle: Don't get cute with me. I'm not in the mood.
I pressed my heel into the floor and felt the fold of bills inside the boot lining. Four hundred and twelve dollars.
Still mine. Still a door. A clerk sending paper didn't change arithmetic.
Perrin: What if he does pick a human, though? Weird things happen.
Doyle: No, they don't. A human in that chair would be an insult to every wolf in the hall.
Perrin: See? Which is why she stays at the back and doesn't breathe.
Nobody asked the human what she thought. Nobody ever does.
So I counted fence posts instead and let them plan my night without me.
Then the trees opened up, and there it was.
Thale Keep was a black wall on a hill with towers behind it, and every window was burning.
At the gate a guard read names off a board, and his pen stopped on mine.
He wrote one short word beside it and waved us through like we were a delivery.
My phone buzzed once against my thigh, and I covered it with my hand so Doyle wouldn't see.
Jory. Two weeks. I'm counting with you. Eat something, you get mean when you're scared.
I read it twice and put the phone away before anyone noticed the soft, stupid look on my face.
The gates shut behind us with a sound like a lock turning all the way through me.
Perrin was still talking about curtsies. Doyle was still watching me in the mirror. Roderick was still driving.
I sat in the middle of my family and felt exactly as alone as I have ever felt in my life.
I told myself my life would still be there when I came back. Same laundromat, same ticket, same quiet plan.
But something under my ribs already knew better, and it had known since a wolf looked at me through the pines.
I had crossed a line that doesn't let you step back over it. I just hadn't found out what was on the other side yet.