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I couldn't answer.

I covered the little worn sun with my hand and held it against my skin.

Jax fell asleep not long afterward, suddenly and completely, the way he seemed to do everything.

I stayed awake beside him with the lamp turned low and my fingers still curled around his mother's pendant. Below the tower, the sea moved steadily against the base of the cliff.

The metal stayed warm in my hand through the night.

By the time the darkness beyond the window began to thin toward morning, Saturday was already coming.

Solstice Eve.

Five ferals waiting in the Pit.

A man with gold eyes who would be standing at an altar at midnight.

Bond Night was tomorrow.

21

Chapter 21

Wren

The dress didn’t fit.

It was Tamsin’s, the only proper gown she owned, bought for a cousin’s wedding two summers ago and brought to Ironmoor rolled up at the bottom of her suitcase “in case of emergencies.” The silk was a deep emerald green, and the dress had been cut for someone much narrower through the hips than I was. I managed to pull it up to my waist, but that was as far as it would go.

I stood in the middle of my tower room at six o’clock on Bond Night with the fabric gathered around me and felt the old thoughts starting up before I could stop them.

Too big. Too much. Should have eaten less.

“It’s fine,” I said, already reaching for the dress as though I could somehow peel the whole problem off with it. “I’ll wear jeans. Nobody’s going to care what I’m wearing anyway.”

“Stop talking,” Tamsin said.

She was kneeling behind me with a pair of scissors in one hand and her tongue caught between her teeth. Before I could object, she took hold of the side seam of her only good dress and cut cleanly from the waist to the hem.

“Tam—”

“Hold still.”

She cut the other side.

“I have ribbon,” she said. “Saltmere always has ribbon. We use it for the quiz trophies.”

She crossed the room, rummaged through one of her drawers, and came back with a long length of black velvet. Then she began punching small holes along the open seams with the point of the scissors, working quickly and neatly.

“There. Breathe in.”

I did.

“Normally, Wren. You’re sucking your stomach in.”

I let the breath out and tried again.

Tamsin threaded the ribbon through both sides of the dress and laced it until the silk settled around me instead of straining against me. The black velvet crossed over my hips, waist, and thighs, leaving narrow strips of bare skin visible between the laces.