Bound to the iron alpha

le when the forest st

small crack of a branch under my own weight. But now the air had gone so completely still

ought the wave of dizziness rolling through

g," Selene

my legs were beginning to disagree

ould wash my scent off, mess up my trail enough to buy myself another few hours. Maybe. I pushed through

someone who made a deliberate choice to be left alone. Thin smoke curled from the chimney, and a narrow

straight spine that made her look harder than she probably was. Her eyes found me immediately, and what I saw in them

before I coul

to the dried blood on my sleeve, and then lift

n't a

you're trying very hard n

htened. "W

ere for a reason." She set the basket on

s step back. "I di

omeone who ran out of the luxury

oo close to the tr

," I said, keeping my

poor job of lying about you." She stepped aside and opened the door wider. "You can come in, or you

I knew I should have kept wa

verything in it had a purpose. Bundles of roots and leaves hung from the beams overhead. A k

m f

sn't a r

d myself for the past three days. My hands shook, my ribs ached, and my left ankle t

of me without asking and caught my wrist

hen went still. "Silver

cle in me

did yo

heard

ow

she said. "And because your scent has that pack's polish on it, even under all the dirt a

ssion didn't

e it worse somehow. I lo

, was, and let the silence sit there

ou alone?"

be," I said, sharp

fuss, no pity, and she set the bowl on the low table and nodded at it. When I didn't move she said, "The story they're t

into my palms. Every wo

believe th

household gets ruined in public, the handsome heir chooses someone safer, everyone gets a lesson about loy

rushed my mind.

eady

" I said. Her gaze sharpened. "That's not a direction, that's a warning." She crossed to the hearth, stirred the kettle, a

from my hand when she

eople in the border towns say he takes in strays and exile

ss. "That sounds like a story so

oman starts heading toward once she's tired enough and out of ever

the ceremony, from the humiliation of standing there while they bu

ved them

it was respect, or at least the closest thing to it that

as too tired to fight but also because she never once acted like I owed her anything for it. When she handed me a small plate

e it

t want to pretend you

that had been sitting just at the edge of my thinking this whole time without quite coming forward. They hadn't just banished me. They had rewritten m

before she whispered, do not trus

nd in her eyes was the particular expression of someone wh

said. "But I know they wanted ever

t," she said, "is usual

ed, and they had no idea I existed, no idea I was coming, no idea what I carried with me or what had

s beginning to think that was exac