The car stopped in a courtyard bigger than our whole pack house, and somebody opened my door before I could find the handle.
The cold hit me first. Then the size of the place hit me.
Perrin: Fix your hair. Please.
Thale Keep went up until I had to tilt my head back to find the tops of the towers.
Every window was lit. Every light felt like it was looking down at me.
Doyle: Keep walking. Don't gawk like a tourist.
A woman in a gray apron met us at the side door with a clipboard and a smile she only used on wolves.
She checked off Perrin and Doyle and Roderick. Then she got to me and the smile just stopped.
She said humans took the back stairs. She said it like she was telling me where the trash went.
Maeve: Back stairs. Great. Do I get a mop too, or is that extra?
Roderick: Maeve.
Maeve: I'm going. I'm going.
The back stairs smelled like bleach and old onions, and my boots were too loud on every step.
A guard muttered bitch as I squeezed past him, soft enough that he could call me a liar later.
I kept walking. That's what I'm good at.
Upstairs, the woman gave Perrin a room with a view of the front gate.
She gave me a door at the end of the hall. Inside was a folding cot and a lamp with no shade.
There was a stain on the wall shaped almost like a person. I decided not to take it personally.
A footman stopped me on the stairs and shoved a tray of glasses at my chest.
He thought I was staff. I was wearing gray, so honestly, fair.
I set the tray down on a table and he stared at me like I'd insulted his mother.
Doyle found me in the corridor before I'd even found my bag.
Doyle: Roderick wants you in the east hall. Don't make him come get you.
Maeve: Wouldn't dream of it. He's so much friendlier when he's not walking.
Roderick stood at a tall window with his hands behind his back, looking out at nothing.
Roderick: Sit down.
Maeve: You say that like it's a dare.
Roderick: While we're here, you keep your head down. You don't look at the high table. If somebody speaks to you, you answer once and then you shut it.
Maeve: And then what?
Roderick: Then what what?
Maeve: After the Gathering. What happens to me?
He was quiet for one second, and something moved across his face. Then it closed up, like water over a stone.
Roderick: Do as you're told and you'll be fine.
Maeve: That's not an answer.
Roderick: It's the one you're getting. Get some sleep. Tomorrow you stand where I put you.
He straightened his coat, checked the clock, and walked out. Nobody in that hall even looked up when he went.
I stood there alone in a room full of wolves who all knew exactly where they belonged.
Perrin was waiting outside my door, chewing nothing because she'd run out of thumbnail hours ago.
Perrin: Here. Your collar's crooked. You'll look trashy.
She fixed it. Her fingers were warm, and for about two seconds she looked at me like I was her sister instead of a problem.
Perrin: Just don't talk to anyone. Not one word. If you talk, they'll remember you.
And just like that, the two seconds were over.
Perrin: I mean it, Maeve. Please.
Maeve: I heard you.
In my room I lay on the cot and read Jory's text again. Eat something, you get mean when you're scared.
Me: I'm eating.
Jory: You're lying. I can hear it from here.
Jory: You've got this. Two weeks. I'm still counting with you.
Four lines on a cracked screen, and it was the warmest thing that had happened to me all night.
I told myself the plan was still the plan. Bus ticket, diner, cheap room, a life where nobody flinched when I walked in.
Roderick could parade me in front of a thousand wolves, and none of that changed the arithmetic.
Two weeks. That's all I needed.
But the keep was still awake above me, with a high table and a prince and a clerk who had my name in gold, all waiting for morning.
I lay in the dark and listened to wolves walk past my door until I lost count.
I was already past the part where you get to go back.