Wyn hadn’t stopped pacing up and down the parlour floor since he pushed me inside, refusing to let me go out and clean up the front door. He shook his head over and over, his whole body a blur of constant movement.
‘Let’s start at the beginning,’ I said, a picture of stillness compared to his perpetual motion. ‘Do you know for a fact this is a message from the pack? Maybe it’s a threat from Astrid, maybe she knows we’ve been asking questions about her.’
‘No. It’s the pack.’
All the energy pulling us together moments ago now pushed us apart. He was full of conflict and I felt the thread between us fraying in real time.
‘It means you’ve been declared prey. The pack has officially accused you of Cole’s murder and this is to let you know there will be a trial.’
There would be a trial. The time-slip at Hilton Head. Only that wasn’t a trial, it was a witch hunt.
‘I always walk in at the best moments,’ Ashley said, strollinginto the room with a southern woman’s eternal answer to bad news, sweet tea and cookies. ‘There I was, thinking I had a blissful afternoon all to myself. City council meeting delayed, Armageddon brought forward. Not an equitable exchange. What is going on here?’
‘It’s good that you’re home,’ Wyn stalked over to the window, closed the shutters then yanked the curtains closed for good measure. ‘Everyone needs to stay inside.’
‘Wyn thinks the pack knows I killed Cole,’ I told her as he pulled out his phone and turned it off before picking up a pen from the coffee table, poking at a tiny hole in the side, until the sim card popped out. He tucked both items into his back pocket.
‘They can track me the regular way anywhere else,’ he explained, ‘but not here. Gramps mentioned it last time I was home: magic creates blank spots and they exist all over Savannah, that’s one of the reasons they were having trouble keeping tabs on Cole. I don’t know how far Bell House’s wards reach, but we don’t need to make things any easier for them.’
‘If they know about Em, surely they know about you?’ Ashley reasoned. ‘The two of you are never apart for more than ten damn minutes.’
‘I don’t know,’ he moaned, head in his hands as he sank down to the sofa. ‘I don’t fucking know.’
‘Tell me about the trial,’ I demanded, crawling up beside him on my knees, I had to keep him on track. ‘They’ve accused me. Is anyone else in danger?’
‘Anyone considered to have aided or abetted in the death or the cover-up. Even if they don’t know about her magic, they’ll snatch Lydia just for being in your inner circle. They’ll take Ashley and Jackson too. Catherine, if she were still here.’
‘Take or …?’
He looked at me, grim and afraid. The birds painted on thewalls began to circle, slowly at first then in more erratic orbit as my panic spiralled.
‘Just tell us what you can,’ I said, taking pains to sound calm when I was flailing inside. ‘We need to be prepared.’
‘It isn’t much. I had one month with the pack. We’re not much for sitting around and giving lectures, and if there are books to study, I haven’t seen them,’ he said, pressing his fingertips into his temples, trying to squeeze out more knowledge than he had. ‘There’s a council, my mom is the leader, they meet once a month to discuss problems and issue punishments. Mom wanted me to sit in and someone mentioned a trial when they were discussing what happened to Cole …’
‘When he tried to kill Emily and Catherine, thus getting himself stabbed in the throat and dumped in the river?’ Ashley offered before leaning forward to grab a cookie and snap it in two. ‘What? Am I wrong? Continue.’
‘They didn’t know who killed him then, the debate was whether or not an accidental death would still warrant a trial. Most folks figured he got himself shot by a hunter and was too badly injured to heal himself,’ Wyn continued, paler than I’d ever seen him. ‘From what I recollect, it happens on the night of a full moon, early, before the moon reaches its peak.’
‘So before the phase?’
He nodded. ‘There will be another message, from an emissary, telling you where to be and when. The pack leader will be the judge.’
‘Your mom.’ My lips shaped themselves around the words but no sound emerged from my mouth. Wyn didn’t respond in any way.
‘You know for sure it’s your pack?’ Ashley asked. ‘It could be this lone-wolf asshole trying to scare us into making a mistake.’
‘It’s them.’ Wyn looked sick to his stomach. ‘I wasn’t sureat first, the magic around the house threw me for a loop, but I can smell it now. It’s my pack for sure.’
‘What if I leave?’ I suggested. ‘Savannah, the US, what if I vanished?’
‘Not possible. They have your scent, all the other packs will be informed. You aren’t a Were, you can’t go to another pack and ask for clemency like an exiled wolf.’
‘What if she happened to have a still-beating heart party favour?’ Ashley asked.
‘I don’t think many Weres would look for much of a reason to execute a witch,’ Wyn said, stammering out the last couple of words. ‘They’ve given you seven days’ notice, they want you to run – it’s considered an admission of guilt. Chasing you down is just another part of the hunt. A part they’ll enjoy.’
‘You can’t leave town anyhow,’ Ashley said. ‘Hate to be the one to point this out, but Lydia’s Becoming has to take place on the full moon next Sunday or she loses her magic.’
