What the Smoke Saw

hand on the frame and waited, and after a moment Cora let out a breat

oved from her bunk, and her eyes we

said. "Go

to know what

ou do. Go

king about this later, and then the door clicked and it was just the

any closer. "Sh

you

The mark. S

burn. It was a birthmark. But he was standing there with his grey eyes steady on me, and my wolf was pushin

eeve up and he

gh the middle of it, and in the dim light of the cabin it was faintly luminous. Dex crossed the room in three step

ve you had i

I was

not po

ex. It's been there

ething down. "Marks like that don't come from birth. They come from a claiming. Someone puts a

w what

know who

night. "I was left with a woman who ran a laundry in Missoula when I was three days old. She kept me until I was se

t wo

as there when she found me. I've had healers look at it. One old wolf in Wyoming

to the window. His should

d walk through this base and look at every wolf here like he's counting them. I

l keep it

it flatly, like he was reading it off a card. "I mean it this time. No more standing in my office arguing with me. No more pu

if I

you on the

rom the jump and the mark was warm under my sleeve, and

a coward

d came

roperly. Any one of those things could get you killed before the season's out, and you want me to sit in a cabin and eat my meals and not ask questi

e creek ran loud over the rocks, and I walked down to the water because

ore I saw him.

be out here a

alone. Yo

, half full and white, and it laid a line of light down th

a coward,

d have fo

is on a list the council could call a violation if it wanted to." He turned to face me. "You think I don't want to know what that mark is? I've been thin

er and something happened

here. I felt the tiredness in his shoulders and a low grinding fear that had nothing to do with me and everything to do with

His hand went

s that,"

n't k

eyes had gone wide and his voice had gone rough. "That's a ma

't do a

dn't. That's w

on the water, and I could still feel him at the edge of

behind us. A flashlight, sweeping

u need to come to

a big bald man named Elia

s it?"

With silver wire." Elias held up his hand, and even in the dark I could see the thin bright coi

long time, and then he looked at me, an

the note sa

the flashlight bobbed away into the dark. But he left the note with me. It had t

k I