et's

ide of violins and clinking glasses and bright, careless laughter, and I carried my suitcase down

pack members in their finest evening clothes crowded the polished floor. My whole childhood had unfolded in this room,

aw locked tight. "What on earth are you doing? Put that suitca

as going," I answered

in her sapphire gown. "Darling, your sister's friends are waiting. Be a dear

d finally slip loose inside me. "I have no tantrum to discuss, Mother. I

nd my breath caught painfully. The gown had tiny seed pearls stitched along the bodice, and

it was sitting unused, so it seemed a shame to waste it. Linnet,

y. "One photograph, and then yo

ent fingertips in the dressmaker's shop, and I fe

quietly. "Enj

the cold blue dusk, and Mother's voice followed

easonable. Where doe

laugh. "She will cool off outside and come

arbed hook slowly out of my ches

dripping pines with its headlamps dimmed to a soft amber glow. A lea

in Ione Maddox of the Grey

aled behind me with a muted thud, the tight coil in my

t golden smudge in the rear window. Captain Maddox sat across from me with a leather folder in her lap

h blood bonds, and a single thread of family connection can lead them straight to our defensive lines. So every recruit who enters the def

said, and my voi

one, it canno

stand, C

ed in my lap al

nded by admiring friends...Seraphine hugging Mother, then hugging Corvin, then wearing a crown of white lilies. And at the very bottom, a full family portrait, four s

g, unbearable hope, for a single line from any

re was

hat took me a full minute to find. Then I read them over once and deleted every letter, bec

ded the phone to Captain Maddox, who seale

" she murmured. "The s

inside my heart. Then the ache sharpened into a hot white pain that tore through my ribs and down my

never learned to untangle. It snapped with a cold, sil

had trusted most and been wounded by most. It slid out of

once carried me through a blizzard. I remembered his arms around me at seven

hole body shook with it.

e, and I pressed my forehead against my knees and sobbed without sound, beca

opened where my family had been. It was so cold and so t

my cheeks soaked. Captain Maddox did not speak or move or offer a

face on my sleeve, and my reflection stared back from t

ry careless sentence and every hand that had shoved me aside, every not

red, and the words fell into the sil

id," Captain Maddox said quietly.

ainst a sky full of stars, and for the first time in twent

h," I said, "that nobody e