Chapter 4

The blankets.

Thirty-six parcels. One a month, for three years.

The gray wool I'd slept under every night. The sweater I'd pulled over my knees when the silver burned too hot to sleep.

Silver numbs a wolf's nose. All I'd ever smelled in that wool was home.

Never what was hiding under it.

Rosie.

It had been Rosie all along.

The crowd drifted past me. I gripped the edge of the table to stay on my feet.

Three years of it.

Three years of her killing me, slowly.

And every night, I'd been grateful to whoever sent them.

For most of my life, I'd tried to work out what I had done to her.

We had the same face, the same birthday, the same bedroom until we turned twelve. Yet there had always been something cold at the back of Rosie's eyes when she looked at me.

Whatever I had, she wanted. Not because she lacked it—she had all of it too. She just couldn't stand that I had it as well.

Our parents saw it. They tried to keep things even. Even was never enough for Rosie.

Three years ago, she got exactly what she wanted.

I could still see her carrying the cedar chest into my room. "Hold on to this for me. A few days, tops."

I never asked what was inside. She was my sister.

By the time the pack enforcers came through my door, it was too late to understand. The chest was packed with wolfsbane—enough to poison half the pack.

I ran an apothecary. Who else would be keeping wolfsbane? Nobody listened to me.

I got three years in Coldwater. Rosie got off without a scratch.

And now I was headed back. Three nights. Only this time, I wasn't coming out.

Redmere kept its holding cells on the far edge of their land, two hours from Stonebrook. Stone walls, iron doors. I could feel the silver from the road.

My family drove me there.

None of them spared me a look.

Rosie stayed in the back seat with her hood pulled up. She couldn't be seen here while I walked in wearing her name.

"Call me every night?" she asked Silas through the open window, holding on to his sleeve.

"Every night." He smoothed her hair back. "It's just three."

My mother leaned in to rub her back. "We'll keep you busy, sweetheart. You won't be by yourself for a minute."

"Look after her," my father told Silas. "Don't worry about anything here."

I stood a few steps off and watched.

They were comforting Rosie. They were worried about leaving Rosie.

And I was the one who'd never come home.

"Will anyone visit me?" The words were out before I could stop them.

They all turned. My mother sighed.

"It's three nights, Ivy. Don't be dramatic."

"You survived three years," my father said. "Three nights is nothing."

Silas said nothing. He'd already turned back to the car.

A Redmere guard walked up. "Rosalie Kerrigan?"

I answered to my sister's name.

At the gate, I turned once more. They were clustered around the car in the late light—Rosie leaning out the window toward Silas, our parents on either side.

Through the narrowing gap, her eyes found mine.

She smiled.

The gate slammed.

I walked the corridor by myself. The silver in the walls seared my skin with every step.

A day or two, maybe less, and my body would quit. The poison had seen to that. With Silas two hours away, the bond couldn't hold me anymore.

Would they cry for me?

Would my father ever find out the chest had never been mine?

Would my mother hear herself say three nights won't kill you while she stood over my body?

Would Silas understand that every time I reached for him, I'd been asking him to keep me alive? That every time he stepped away, he'd pushed me another inch toward the end?

The cell door opened, and I walked in.

Three nights.

They thought I'd walk back out that gate.

They were wrong.