The back room of Silverwood Lodge had never been meant for guests.
It was long and low, with a stone hearth at one end and a table at the other, and the walls were covered in old maps of the valley. Someone had drawn a ring of little silver stones around the town, and beside each stone were names in a dozen different hands, as if generation after generation had taken turns guarding it.
Isabella sat by the fire with a blanket around her shoulders and a cup of tea she could not taste.
Lucian sat beside her, not touching, but so close she could feel the heat of him. Across the table, Mrs. Hale, Mrs. Turner, and the old shopkeeper waited with the weary patience of people who had rehearsed this conversation for years.
“We are the descendants of the Ravenshade pack,” Mrs. Hale said. “The one
