Page 78 of The Ordeals
I suppress a shiver, downing the last of my tea.
‘Of course, if it had beenyouchoking, I don’t think he’d have let anyone even leave that hall …’
‘I can’t imagine what you mean.’
‘Right.’ Tessa snorts. ‘I’ve noticed it since the Crucible. He can’t keep his eyes off you, or his hands—’
I say nothing.
‘So you don’t deny it then? You and Alden?’
I’m suddenly very glad of the chill on this level as warmth creeps up my throat, reaching my face. Perhaps I can share this secret with Tessa. Maybe I don’t have to keep this all to myself, and Knox pretty much suspects anyway. And I like him. I’m trying to convince myself it’s just stolen moments, just comfort on the long, dark nights but I find myself thinking about him, craving him. ‘Officially, we’re nothing. Obviously.’
‘Got it.’ Tessa smiles. ‘Well unofficially, good luck.’
‘Tessa?’ Greg suddenly croaks through the door. ‘Tessa, are you there? I don’t feel so …’
Tessa bolts up, moving for the door, and places her hand on the wood. ‘I’m right here. Right here with you. Greg?’
I stand as well, silence suddenly emanating from the room beyond. ‘Greg?’
For a beat, there’s nothing. We both stand there, watching the door, and every hair on the back of my neck rises. I swallow, taking a step back. ‘Tessa, I really think you should move away—’
There’s a thump and the whole door shakes. Tessa jumps back and it’s only then I notice the revolver in her hand, glinting silver in the low light. ‘Greg? Are you all right?’
For a moment, there’s only silence. Insufferable, yawning silence. Then a growl reverberates through the door, echoing deep in my chest as the door at the end of the corridor cracks back on its hinges.
‘He’s fighting it still?’ Alden says, sweeping in with a hip flask in his fingers, swiftly followed by another hopeful. ‘We’re not too late?’
‘Frances?’ I say, standing quickly as Alden passes the hip flask toFrances, and she darts Tessa and I a furtive glance before hurrying towards the room where Greg is.
‘I’m sorry,’ she says quietly. ‘I should have come forward, I should have offered my help … After what happened in Gantry, I knew I couldn’t just stand back. Alden and Knox saved me, and I knew I had to be brave … and help Greg.’ She swallows. ‘Even if that meant you’d all hate me.’
Tessa says nothing, watching her.
‘I bit him,’ she confesses, looking at me, then away. ‘On the full moon in the Morlagh. I couldn’t resist the call of the alpha, the pull of the moon … I transformed for the first time in years, and Greg was close by. I couldn’t stop myself.’
‘You’re awerewolf?’ I blurt, gaping.
She shrugs helplessly, pushing her blonde curls off her forehead. ‘Bitten as a child. My family kept the secret, found a fellow werewolf to coach me. They taught me how to resist, how to develop control. But that night … I was so beyond control. The heightened anxiety about the Ordeal, being in the Morlagh, the sound of beating, human hearts all gushing with blood and magic … it was too much. Greg paid the price.’
‘But … but you’re fine now. You’ve resisted …’ I say.
‘And Greg can learn it too,’ Alden says, ushering Frances towards Greg’s cell door. ‘She’s going to stay with him and administer the wolfsbane. He won’t harm her; she’s part of his pack.’
Frances pulls in a deep breath and opens the door to where Greg is, disappearing through it and closing it behind her. We hear soothing noises, a rustle as she moves around inside, then all goes quiet.
Alden runs a hand down his face and looks at Tessa and me. ‘Not much use you staying here. He’ll be all right now, with Frances’s help.’
But Tessa sinks back into the chair, features closed and troubled.‘I have to stay. I can’t leave him.’ She swallows and looks at me. ‘You go, sleep. I think I need to do this alone.’
I hesitate, then take her hand, squeezing it. This need to be strong, to stand alone, to process, I understand it. ‘Of course. I’ll check back in the morning.’
Alden and I walk back up to the ground floor of Fetlock and I turn to him before we step through into the frosty courtyard. ‘Two werewolves.’
‘It’s not enough,’ he says, staring at the many windows surrounding the courtyard. ‘Whoever the murderer is, they wanted to remove the most powerful hopeful in our cohort.’
‘And Knox showing up midway through the Ordeals really threw off their game plan.’ I sigh, rubbing my eyes. The sky is now a haze of rose pink and violet, soft clouds scudding into the distance. And above us, already risen, the pale orb of a full moon, like a milky eye watching over Killmarth. With Initiation tomorrow, the cold one slipping through in the last Ordeal and the Collector himself breaching the wards to talk to me, to tell me I will not survive … I barely know what to believe. All I know is that the Ordeals have changed me, tested me.
