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He continued watching me until the final tremor left my body. Only then did he turn his attention back to the windshield. He remained completely still, breathing hard, one hand still wrapped around the damaged wheel.

"Second one," Jax murmured into my hair. “Told you.”

I laughed until tears ran from my eyes.

Afterward, we gathered ourselves in the dim car. Underwear, jeans, belts, and the rest of our clothes had ended up scattered between the seats, and we dressed again with unsteady hands while the car stayed mostly quiet. Kaelen did not start the engine until all three of us were dressed, back in our seats, and wearing our seat belts.

Then he drove us back onto the highway, and we continued toward the harbor through the rain.

We reached it shortly before midnight. The rain had stopped by then, and the boat was already waiting at the end of the fish market jetty. A man in oilskins sat hunched near the stern while the engine idled, and a single lamp hung over the bow.

Kaelen pulled the long black car into its place near the market and switched off the engine. For a few moments, none of us made any move to get out.

Eventually, he opened his door and stepped out into the night, then walked around the back of the car to my side and opened the door for me.

I climbed out onto the wet cobblestones in my wrinkled jeans, which Jax had retrieved from the front seat. My legs were still unsteady, and I had to take a moment to make sure they would hold me. Silas got out behind me, while Jax came around from the other side of the car with a wide grin on his face.

Kaelen remained beside my open door. The harbor light behind him left most of his face in shadow, but when he looked at me, I could see that his eyes had returned to gray. The hand resting on the edge of the car door was still trembling.

"I'll remember that for the rest of my life," he said quietly. "No matter what happens after this, you can believe that much."

For a moment, he kept his eyes on mine. Then he closed the door, locked his father's car, and walked away from us along the jetty toward the waiting boat without looking back.

18

Chapter 18

Wren

Ihad slept for maybe two hours after we returned to Ironmoor. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw the rearview mirror, Kaelen's gold eyes, and the way his hand had shaken as he gripped the car door.

I'll remember that for the rest of my life.

I still had no idea what I was supposed to do with that.

The notice was pinned to the board outside the Great Hall on Monday morning, wedged between the schedule for the Baths and a list of lost property. It was written in Mr. Aske's small, precise hand, with no indication that what it contained mattered any more than the notices beside it.

I nearly walked past without seeing it. I was thinking about breakfast, and about Tamsin, who was going to want every detail of what had happened on the mainland, and about how much of it I could actually tell her. Then I caught sight of my surname on a sheet of gray Council paper and stopped so abruptly that the boy behind me walked straight into my back.

By order of the Council of Iron. Mrs. Marion Pike, acquaintance of Ms. Wren Hale, of the address below, was yesterday detained pending inquiry, on a charge of harboring an unregistered Kindred, from early childhood, for a period of eighteen years, contrary to Article Nine of the Accord.

Unregistered Kindred.

Their registrar had publicly stamped me Hollow. Their private file had called me Wildheart: suspected. Apparently either classification was enough to arrest Marion, even though neither had been enough for anyone to tell me the truth.

I read the notice three times before the words began to feel real.

Someone said my name behind me, but I didn't turn around. I tore the notice from the board, taking the pin with it, and walked out of the corridor with the paper crushed in my fist. I didn't stop until I was standing in the middle of Oda's high, round room at the top of the west tower, struggling to catch my breath because I had apparently run the entire way.

She had already seen it. I knew that the moment I came through the door.

Oda stood at the east window with her small hands folded in front of her, looking across the gray water toward the mainland. When she turned to face me, she looked older than I had ever seen her, and for the first time since I had known her, I could see every year she carried.

"Get her out," I said. "Please. You're an Elder. You sit on the Council. There has to be something you can do."

"I am one seat in nine," Oda said gently. "The Accord gives me authority over this island and over everyone placed in its charge." Her great gold eyes stayed on mine, and there was real sorrow in them. "Mrs. Pike is neither staff nor student. She is not on my island, child, and there is nothing I can sign that reaches her."

I stared at her. "Then send someone."