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For one irrational moment, I found myself wondering whether the wolf beneath my window and the rose beside my bed were connected.

5

Chapter 5

Wren

The moon rose full on my eighth night at Ironmoor, and by late afternoon it had already begun to affect everyone.

The change was impossible to miss. The corridors were louder than usual, and people laughed too hard at things that weren't funny, then turned around and snapped at each other over nothing. Two Fenhall seniors got into a shoving match outside the Great Hall that ended with one of them bleeding from the lip, although both of them were still grinning when a prefect finally pulled them apart. Tamsin couldn't sit still through dinner. Her knee bounced so hard beneath the table that the surface of her soup trembled with every movement.

There was a restless pressure in the castle that seemed to have settled over everyone at once.

The strange part was that I felt it too.

All afternoon, my skin had felt uncomfortably tight and sensitive. My clothes seemed rougher than usual, every seam and fold noticeable against me. My nipples had been hard on and off since morning, rubbing distractingly against my bra, and every so often a dull ache stirred between my legs for no reason I was willing to examine too closely.

My other senses had sharpened with it. During dinner, even with the Great Hall doors shut and the fire roaring at the far end of the room, I could smell the sea outside: salt, wet stone, kelp, and cold air. I could pick out the rosemary on the lamb being served three tables away. Sitting beside me, Tamsin carried a faint metallic sweetness beneath the smell of soap and food, and somehow I knew it was nerves.

I kept my head down, finished my dinner, and said nothing.

Hollows didn't smell things from across a crowded hall. Hollows weren't supposed to feel the moon.

When the plates had been cleared, Oda Brannock rose from her chair on the dais. Conversation died throughout the room before she said a word.

"Tonight is the first night of Moonfever," she said. "For three nights, every beast on this island will lie closer to the surface than it has all month. You will find your tempers shorter and your appetites sharper. You will do nothing tonight that you would be ashamed of in the morning." Her unblinking gaze traveled slowly across the hall. "And tonight, as we have on the first full moon of every year since this school was founded, we will hold the Moonrun."

A low sound rose from the older students, eager enough that I couldn't tell whether it was supposed to be a cheer or something less civilized. The skin at the back of my neck tightened.

"The rules are old and simple," Oda continued. "At moonrise, those who arrived this year will enter the Hollow Wood. One hour later, those who arrived before them will follow. Every hunter will carry a red cord. If a hunter catches you and ties that cord around your wrist, you are caught. Until the end of term, you will serve your captor's House in whatever small ways it requires."

Her attention shifted to the older students.

"Service means House labor. It does not include your body, your bed, or any order prohibited by the Accord. A spoken refusal ends any contact beyond what is necessary to secure the cord. The ward-lines will alert faculty to life-threatening injury, but they will not prevent that injury from occurring. Do not confuse rules with safety."

She allowed a moment of silence before continuing.

"A hunter may abandon a chase at any time. Once they have physically caught a runner, however, they must bind the cord. Deliberately shielding, guiding, hiding, or otherwise assisting uncaught prey is forbidden. Doing so will cost the hunter's House fifty points, and the hunter will answer to me personally. Any runner found to have arranged such assistance will automatically be counted as caught."

Then she looked back toward the newcomers.

"If you reach dawn with your wrist bare, you remain uncaught, and you owe no House anything."

She never said that the rule applied to Hollows too, but she didn't need to. Apparently Ironmoor had decided that releasing a group of moon-drunk predators into a forest to hunt younger students was perfectly acceptable as long as everyone understood the regulations. And I would assume I was included.

The whole tradition was insane.

At the Fenhall table, Delphine Marrow twisted around in her seat until she found me half-hidden behind my usual pillar. Her smile widened.

"I will take such good care of you, Stray," she called across the room, her voice sweet enough to make the insult worse. "You'll make a lovely little maid."

Laughter spread along the table, and heat climbed into my face before I could stop it.

At the head of the same table, Kaelen Vance set down his glass.

He hadn't looked in my direction once all week, at least not in daylight, but the small sound of glass touching wood was enough to silence everyone around him. The laughter stopped almost immediately.

Kaelen didn't look at Delphine, and he didn't look at me. He simply stood, pushed back his chair, and walked out of the hall with the same detached indifference he seemed to bring to everything.