Her Father's Poison

in the council room under guard, and he wrote everything down in a small black notebook

oke from the fish houses was blowing across the lawn. I

to get his breath. I had heard it every night for three years. It had started in the winter my mother died, and Hester had ca

he stairs t

ig man once. The man in the bed was not that man. His skin had gone grey at the edges, and his h

ord out and then the

me, and after a while the fit let go of him and he leaned back against the pillow. His hair

n the bar," he said. His voice w

was. A

e with our

ding in the doorway with

," I

y the end of the week." He started to cough and stopped himself,

hould

strong, which made the rest of him look worse. "The pack will need an Alpha who can

ds go into me

the Alpha

for eleven years. He knows the law and he knows the harbor, and the pack trusts him.

ly, "Marcus, you should n

. He looked at me. "I want yo

out of his. "Yo

el

ack into the hall to let me pass. I went down the stairs and out the back door

as seventy years old and her silver hair was in a braid down her back, and her eyes

You look like a woman who has

t tell her about Roan. She listened without saying anything and set a cup of something

t the coughin

is w

"Nell. I have been dosing your father for three years and I have not touched the

d somethi

ief and it does not come from damp. A curse would have a shape to it, a sign, a mark. I have

very

ed it again last month on the inside of his cup. I cannot name it. But I have smelled wet iron in one other place in

n my hands. "What

er." She held my eyes. "And I would like to know where

t going to

down a small brown bottle with a cork in it. "Take this to your fath

at pocket. "Hester. If it is poison.

one who can reach his plate and his cup, and that is a very short list of wolves." She turned ba

the grass and the gulls were fighting over something down b

d Cal was waiting for me

ou about my of

di

and then up at me. "You have

u want it. You

d you were standing in the harbor with your mother's boat hook in your hand." He held out his hand, palm up, the way you do to a dog you do not want to frighten. "If a rogue is bringing poison

eady and he had been my friend since I could walk, and I looked at

ink about

the pack house, and I

he hill, out past the fish house, three short slaps against the pilings and a long

he boathouse before I got there, I