Chapter 1 The Gate That Branded Me

Nova

The last time I stood at the Duskwood gates, they were burning my skin. Now I stood there again, six years older, with a medical bag in my hand and a lie in my mouth.

"Name?" The guard held a silver-tipped spear an inch from my chest.

"Dr. Ivy Calder." My voice came out smooth, thank God. "The Alpha sent for a healer."

"The Alpha sent for a miracle." He sniffed the air and frowned. "You smell like medicine."

Good. That was the point. I had spent three weeks rubbing wolfsbane salve into my skin until my own scent was only bitter leaves and soap. I had cut my hair short and dyed it brown. I wore glasses I did not need and under my collar, over my left shoulder, the old brand still throbbed, a crossed fang, the mark they burn into wolves who are never allowed home.

The guard did not know me. He had been a boy when they threw me out. He had probably cheered.

"Go on," he said at last, and the gate groaned open.

I walked into the place that killed my mother. Duskwood looked the same. Pine forest, stone lodges, snow packed hard on the paths but the faces were different. A woman sat on a porch step coughing into a rag, and when she pulled it away, the cloth was black. Black veins crawled up her wrist like roots under ice.

The Silver Rot! I had read about it and seeing it was another thing. I kept walking but then, I told myself not to look left. Anyway, I looked left.

The execution post stood at the edge of the square. Old, grey wood, stained dark at the base. Nobody had cleaned it, nobody had even tried. I had been eighteen, on my knees in the snow with silver chains on my wrists, and I had screamed my mother's name until I had no voice left. She had looked at me across that square, calm as a Sunday, and said only: "Live, little moon."

My breath fogged white, my hands were shaking. I put them in my pockets. Not yet, I told myself. Not here and not until I find out who did it.

"Dr. Calder!"

A man came down the Alpha House steps with both hands out, smiling like I was a long-lost daughter. Tall, silver at the temples, handsome in a soft, kind way. Ambrose Duskwood, the Beta. Caelan's uncle. Once, he had slipped me sweets from his pockets when I was seven.

"We are so grateful," he said, folding my cold hand between both of his. "So many have come and failed. My nephew is..." He swallowed. His eyes shone. "Forgive me. He is all I have left."

I smiled back. My whole body went still, like a rabbit near a fox. I could not have told you why.

"I will do everything I can," I said.

"I know you will." He patted my hand once, gently. "Come. He's been asking."

The Alpha's room was dark and hot, and smelled like sickness. The curtains were drawn. A fire burned low and in the great bed, propped against the pillows, lay the man who had destroyed my life.

I had practised this moment for six years. I had imagined him smug, or cruel, or on a throne. I had not imagined him looking like this. Caelan Duskwood was thinner. His cheekbones had sharpened to knife edges. Black veins crawled up his throat and into his jaw, and his skin was the colour of old paper but his eyes were the same. Steel grey and steady. Worn to the bone, and still refusing to blink.

"Dr. Calder," Ambrose said softly. "The Alpha."

Caelan looked at me.

Something moved behind his eyes. Fast and strange. His nostrils flared, his whole body went rigid against the pillows, and the black veins at his throat pulsed once, hard.

I stopped breathing. He knows, I thought. He has to know.

"Leave us," he said. His voice was a raw whisper.

"Caelan, you need..."

"Leave us, Uncle."

Ambrose hesitated. Then he bowed his head and slipped out, and the door clicked shut behind him.

Silence, fire crackling. My pulse pounded in my ears.

"Who are you?" Caelan asked.

"I told you. Ivy Calder."

"No." His eyes did not leave my face. "That's your name. I asked who you are."

I forced my chin up. I made my voice flat as a scalpel. "I'm the only person who can save you, Alpha. If you want to live, I have two conditions."

A flicker of something crossed his face. It might have been a smile or It might have been pain.

"Go on."

"One. Full control of the clinic. Every drug, every patient, every decision. No one overrules me, not the Beta, not the Elders. Not you."

"And two?"

"Your oath. You will not interfere with my work, my methods, or my questions. You will not ask where I came from. You will not follow me." I took a breath. "Swear it, by moon and by blood or I walk out of these gates tonight and let your people rot."

It was cruel. I knew it was cruel. He studied me for a very long time. Long enough that the fire popped twice. Long enough that six years of anger cracked, just slightly, and I hated it.

Then Caelan Duskwood reached under his pillow, drew a small silver knife, and slid the blade across his palm. Blood welled dark and bright. He held his hand out.

"By moon and blood," he said, quietly, "I swear it."

I did not breathe. Our hands met. His fingers were hot, burning with fever, but his grip was careful, almost gentle. The moment my skin touched his blood, something inside me, deep in a place I had thought was empty, opened its eyes.

His breath hitched. His pupils flared gold. A low sound rumbled out of his chest. It was not human. It was the sound of a wolf who had slept for six years and had just heard a name. Then his hand fell away and I fled that room. I only remember cold air, a girl's voice somewhere shouting about tea, and the long walk to the clinic with my hands trembling around my bag.

The clinic was in the old stone cottage behind the lodge. The door was unlocked. Inside, it smelled of dried herbs and ink, and my knees almost gave out, because it was exactly the same. My mother's glass jars. My mother's mortar and pestle. The stool where I used to sit and watch her work.

The stool had been dusted, the mortar was clean, which means someone had kept this room alive. On the workbench, beside a single white flower in a glass of water, sat a folded card. My fingers did not feel like mine as I opened it.

Welcome home, Nova.

Nobody in Duskwood knew my name. I stared at the handwriting. Round loops, a little slant. Every letter sitting on the line like a bird on a wire. I had seen that handwriting on a thousand recipe cards. It was my mother's!