The Reading

"Dying," you repeat.

Mother Sigrun lets go of your hand. "Moonrise," she says. "I don't read twice. Go and eat something. You'll want to be standing up for this."

The ore dock at night is the strangest place you've ever stood.

It runs half a mile out into Lake Superior, wide as a highway, built of concrete and old timber and rust. Iron rails still run down the middle where the ore cars used to roll. On either side, far below, the lake breathes against the pilings, black and enormous. The wind smells like cold stone and distance.

The court has come out in coats and furs to stand along the rails. Lanterns hang from iron hooks. At the very end of the dock, where there's nothing beyond but water and the edge of the sky, Mother Sigrun waits in a heavy wool shawl, leaning on a cane.

Wolfram walks beside you the whole way. He doesn't touch you.

"You can still say no," he says, low.

"Then the Chancellor gets to tell everyone what I'm hiding."

"Let him."

"No." You keep walking. "I'm tired of other people telling the story about me."

He's quiet for a few steps. "Okay," he says. Just that. Like it settles something.

Ottmar Sauer stands near the front of the crowd, Viveca at his elbow in a cream coat. She's watching you with an expression you can't read. Not quite cruelty. Curiosity, maybe. Like she's waiting to see if you'll embarrass yourself.

Sigrun lifts her cane and points it at the eastern horizon.

The moon comes up out of the lake.

It's huge and the color of butter, and its light runs across the water toward the dock like a road. The crowd goes silent. Sigrun holds out her hand. You put your wrist in it. Her grip is cold and absolute.

"Your Majesty," she says. "Your hand on her shoulder. Only if she allows."

Wolfram looks at you. You nod. His palm settles on your shoulder, warm and heavy through your coat, and something inside your chest answers him so fast you gasp.

Sigrun closes her eyes.

For a long minute there is only wind and water. Then she starts to speak, in a voice that carries without being loud, and every word goes into the dark like a stone into a well.

"There's a bond here, cut but not cut. Frayed at one end. Held at the other." Her eyes stay closed. "The man who frayed it is Alpha Easton Kinnear of Birchwood."

A murmur. You feel Wolfram's hand go still.

"His wolf knew her," Sigrun says. "Not three nights ago. Months ago. The longest day of the summer. A picnic, by water. His wolf breathed her in and marked her scent as its own and told him what she was." Sigrun's nostrils flare. "Not a passing pull. Not a fancy. A true luna. The one his wolf would choose over every other in the world."

The creamery picnic. June twenty-first. Easton handed you a paper plate of potato salad and his fingers brushed yours and he went completely still, and you thought it was the heat. He walked you home for the first time that night.

"He knew," Sigrun says. "The boy knew. And he stood on a stage and cut her anyway."

"Why?" Your voice comes out as a croak.

Sigrun's head tilts, listening. "There's a promise in him. Older and heavier than love. A match with a girl named Aldrich. Money in it. Fear in it." Her lips thin. "He chose the match. He chose it knowing. He said the cruel thing so that you'd never forgive him and never come back."

You can't breathe. You can hear yourself not breathing.

All summer. All summer you thought you were the one taking a chance on him. And he knew exactly what you were, and he decided you weren't worth the price.

I deserve better than a plus-size she-wolf.

He didn't even believe it. He said it because it was the cheapest thing in the room and he knew it would work.

"But the girl never accepted," Sigrun goes on, more quietly. "She never said the words. The bond hangs open like a door in winter. And a wolf that has found its true mate and been refused, with the door left open..." Her eyes open and look straight into yours. "Sickens. It won't eat. It won't run. It won't answer when he calls it. Every day she's gone, it fades."

Somewhere behind you, someone whispers, God.

"Is he going to die?" you ask.

"His wolf might," Sigrun says. "What's left of a man after that, I've never cared to find out."

Wolfram's hand is still on your shoulder. You can feel it trembling, very slightly. Not with weakness. With the effort it takes him not to turn around and walk four hours south.

"And the other thread?" Ottmar Sauer's voice cuts in, smooth as oil. "The court is here to learn about the King, Mother."

Sigrun doesn't look at him. She tilts her head toward Wolfram, and for the first time all night, something like a smile cracks her face.

"There's a second thread," she says. "Bright as that moon. Running from her to him. It isn't tied yet. It's waiting." She lets go of your wrist. "He's hers. He was hers the second he walked in. Whether she's his is her business, not the court's, and not yours, Ottmar Sauer."

The Chancellor's face doesn't move. Viveca's does. Just for a second, she looks like someone has slapped her.

Then it's over. The lanterns sway. The court breaks up in a rush of whispers, and in about ninety seconds every phone in Ironmere will know that the King's guest is the true luna of a pack alpha who threw her away on purpose.

You walk to the edge of the dock and grip the iron rail and stare out at the moon road on the water.

Wolfram comes to stand beside you. Ten feet. He's learned the distance.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"You didn't do it."

"I know. I'm sorry anyway." His voice is rough. "Tell me what you need."

"I don't know." Your hands are shaking on the rail. "I don't know, Wolfram. Six years I kept that pack's books. I knew every number in Birchwood. I didn't know the one that mattered."

He doesn't say anything. He doesn't try to fix it. He just stays.

Your phone rings.

It's Signe. She never calls. She texts in all caps and voice-memos when she's driving. Your stomach drops as you answer.

"Signe?"

"Ava." She's crying. You've never heard Signe Kinnear cry. "He collapsed. Easton. At the creamery, an hour ago. He just went down. Doc Bergstrom says his wolf won't come up. He tried to shift to heal and nothing happened. Nothing. It's like it's not even there."

You close your eyes.

"He's awake now," Signe says. "Barely. And he keeps asking for you. Over and over. Just your name." A ragged breath. "I hate him. I hate him so much. But Ava, I think he's dying."