Page 15 of Echo North

The darkness narrowed in as we walked. It seemed to stare at us, it seemed tolisten.The floor creaked beneath our feet. Somewhere close by, doors sighed opened and snicked shut again. Keys rattled, voices laughed. Bells jangled loudly and chains dragged over stone. I caught the scent of a winter forest, damp wood and cold so sharp it burned.

And always the wolf, solid and strong beside me, padding quietly and confidently on. “What is your name?” he asked after awhile.

I fixed my eyes on the single lamp burning ahead of us that we never seemed to reach. “Echo. For the echo of my mother’s heartbeat.”

We climbed a set of stairs, turned a corner. Someone sobbed in the dark.

“I heard a story once, about a girl with that name.”

My breath caught hard in my throat. “How did her story end?”

“I do not remember.”

“What is your name?” I asked.

“I do not have a name.”

“Then what am I to call you?”

“Whatever you like.”

We passed a row of doors that smelled of smoke, and a little ways beyond another row that smelled of rain. Currents of light began to swirl in the air, like colorful fireflies with long tails. I reached out to touch one. It was warm, and soft as a willow. “What are they?”

“The lamps. They are the last things to become unbound. Hurry.”

He quickened his pace and I nearly had to run to keep up with him. Something spiny wound around my ankle and I yelped, falling against the wolf.

But then I looked up and saw the carved red door, the very normal lantern on the wall beside it glowing steadily.

“Just in time,” said the wolf, and he stepped inside.

I scrambled to my feet and followed.

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE ROOM BEYOND THE RED DOORwas comfortingly ordinary.

It boasted a grand four-poster bed rather too big for it, a dressing table, and a tall wardrobe. A small circular window was set high on the back wall—the first window I’d seen, I realized, since entering the wolf’s house.

The wolf eyed me strangely, tension in his frame that hadn’t been there a moment before. “My lady, there is a … stipulation … to your stay here.”

Ice flooded my veins, and once more I grabbed the compass-watch, taking comfort in its constant ticking. “What stipulation?”

He paced in front of the door, immense power evident in his huge frame, the specks of blood on his fur darkened and dried. I was safe from the house in here, but was I safe from him?

He stared at me, and I was transfixed by him, neither willing nor able to look away. “You must allow me to stay in this room with you every night,” he said. “And—and there is something you must swear you will never do.”

I could barely breathe, my heart overloud in my ears. “What is that, Lord Wolf?”

For some reason, he flinched at the address. His voice dropped into an even lower growl. “You must swear that you will never light a lamp and look at me during the night. Not once. Not ever. And if you do not agree to this—” His eyes narrowed to slits. “If you do not agree, I will even now thrust you from the room and leave you to the mercy of the house, and the wood. Will you swear?”

The wolf loomed large in my sight line. I wouldn’t last half a moment outside of that door, and he must have known that. But how cruel to offer me a choice when I really had no choice at all.

“My lady.” His voice was softer somehow. “I will not harm you. You are safe with me. I hope you know that.”

I didn’t know that—and I had the scars to prove it—but I also didn’t have the luxury to deny him. Slowly, I dropped to my knees so I could look the wolf in the eye. I bowed my head to him as if he were a king. “I swear, Lord Wolf, that I will never light a lamp and look at you in the night.”

He dipped his white muzzle. “Thank you, my lady.” He broke my gaze and loped away from me. “I shall turn my back while you dress for bed. Then you may blow out the light.”

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