Howl I Met Him: Werewolf Trials

Chapter 3

Kade found her exactly where he said he would, which was annoying, because it meant she'd spent the whole morning half expecting him to.

She was cutting across the quad toward first period when he fell into step beside her like he'd been walking there the whole time, hands in his pockets, that same unbothered set to his shoulders he wore like armor.

"You look like you didn't sleep."

"Thank you, very kind, very flattering."

"I'm not trying to flatter you. I'm asking if you're okay."

"I watched the ground shake and heard something scream last night. I'm doing great." She glanced sideways at him. "You?"

"Also great." A beat. "Also lying."

That surprised a laugh out of her, quick and real, and something in his face eased at the sound of it, like he'd been waiting to see if she still had one in her after yesterday.

"I talked to Marrow," he said, quieter now, steering her off the main path toward the library steps. "Told her what happened. She wants to see the old records, the ones from when the seal first went up."

"And she needed you to fetch me for that?"

"She needs the one the seal's reacting to. That's you, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately, he says, like I asked for any of this."

"I didn't mean it like that." He held the library door for her, and for a second, right as she passed close enough to catch the low cedar smell of him, his hand came up like he meant to touch her arm and then thought better of it, dropping back to his side instead. [Interesting,] she thought. [Very interesting. File that away for later.]

Marrow was waiting for them at a table buried under stacks so old the leather covers had gone soft and grey, and she didn't look up when they approached, just kept turning brittle pages with the careful patience of someone who'd done this a thousand times before.

"Sit," Marrow said. "Both of you."

They sat. Reyna noticed, distantly, that Kade left exactly one chair's width between them and then immediately closed half of it without seeming to realize he'd done it.

"Two hundred years ago," Marrow said, without preamble, "seven wardens sealed something under the east wing that the old texts refuse to name directly. They just call it the Hunger." She turned a page, and the parchment crackled like dry leaves. "Whatever it was, it took seven of them working together to bind it, and it cost most of them their lives to do it."

"Okay," Reyna said. "So what's that got to do with me?"

Marrow finally looked up; her pale eyes went straight to Reyna's face and held there a beat too long. "The binding required blood. Warden blood, specifically, tied into the wards themselves so the seal would recognize its own line if it was ever needed again." She slid a page across the table, brittle ink sketching out a family tree Reyna had never seen, names she didn't recognize branching down through generations. "One of those seven wardens was named Liora."

The name meant nothing to Reyna. And then it did, all at once, like a held breath finally let go.

"That's my mother's name."

"Your mother's grandmother's name," Marrow said. "Passed down. Which would make you a direct descendant of one of the seven who sealed it in the first place."

The room went very quiet. Reyna's whole understanding of the last twenty four hours cracked down the middle and rearranged itself into something completely different.

"Wait." She looked between Marrow and Kade, waiting for one of them to tell her she was wrong. "Everyone's been talking like I'm the reason it's waking up. Like I'm some kind of key for whoever wants it out."

"That's what everyone assumed," Marrow said. "Because that's the simpler story. A girl born under a blood moon, a seal reacting the same night. It writes itself." She tapped the family tree, her nail landing square on Liora's name. "But blood doesn't only work one way. If you're a warden's descendant, you're not the thing that unlocks the door. You're one of the keys built to keep it shut. The seal isn't reacting because it senses a way out."

"Then why is it reacting?"

Marrow's expression didn't change, but something in her voice went careful, the way people got right before they said something they didn't want to. "It's reacting because it senses one of its locks finally came home. And locks only make noise like that for one reason."

"Which is?"

"Because something's already trying to pick them."

Nobody spoke for a second. Kade's jaw had gone tight enough that a muscle jumped in it, and when Reyna looked at him his eyes were already on her, dark and steady and furious in a way that had nothing to do with her.

"Someone's been working the seal from the inside," he said, low. "That's what you're telling us."

"That's what I'm telling you." Marrow closed the book with a soft, final thud. "And whoever it is has had two hundred years of patience and access most of us don't. I'd start wondering who benefits from a warden bloodline walking back through that gate right when the wards start failing."

Reyna's stomach turned cold. Because there was really only one obvious answer sitting in the room with them, and it wasn't Marrow, and it wasn't her.

It was whoever had known exactly who she was and exactly which wing to warn her away from before she'd even unpacked a bag.

She turned to look at Kade at the same moment he turned to look at her, and the accusation sat there between them, unspoken, ugly, and impossible to ignore.

"It wasn't me," he said immediately, quiet and hard.

"I didn't say it was."

"You were thinking it."

"You knew things nobody else did. About the moon, about my mother, about the seal reacting the second I walked through that gate." Her voice shook despite herself. "How would you know all that unless somebody told you to watch for it?"

"Because my father is the one holding the wards together, Reyna, and I grew up sleeping two hallways down from a door that groans in its sleep. Of course I know things." He leaned forward, close enough now that she could see the exact moment frustration gave way to something rawer underneath it. "I have spent my entire life being handed pieces of this and told not to ask questions. You think I like finding out my own family might be sitting on the answer to who's picking that lock?"

"I don't know what to think."

"Then think about this." His voice dropped, low enough that Marrow, tactfully studying her book, pretended not to hear. "I warned you off that wing before I knew any of what Marrow just said. Before there was a family tree, before there was a reason. I didn't do that because someone told me to watch you. I did it because something in me didn't want you anywhere near whatever's under that floor." His eyes didn't waver from hers. "Call it instinct. Call it whatever you want. But it wasn't a job, Reyna, and it wasn't for anyone but you."

The library had gone very quiet, or maybe it was just the blood roaring in her own ears. She was aware, distantly, of Marrow's page turning again, aware of Fen's voice from yesterday needling her about the way Kade looked at her, aware of the rival girl's warning about damsels and jobs, and none of it mattered half as much as the two feet of space between her chair and his, closing by degrees neither of them seemed to be deciding on purpose.

"Okay," she said, quieter now. "Okay. I believe you."

Something in his shoulders let go, like she'd handed him back something he'd been braced to lose.

That was, of course, the exact moment the library doors slammed open, and a boy Reyna didn't recognize came sprinting down the aisle, breathless, white faced, straight toward their table.

"Kade." He barely got the name out before doubling over, hands on his knees. "Your father wants you. Now. The seal, it's not just cracking anymore."

Kade was already on his feet. "What happened?"

The boy looked up, and whatever was on his face made Reyna's stomach drop straight through the floor.

"Something got out."