Raven Meadows's Arc

Chapter 3 of 25

Raven opened the door. Cold air pushed in. On the step stood a werewolf pup, small and shivering, gray fur matted with mud. His clothes hung in strips. He clutched a worn book to his chest with both hands. His blue eyes flicked up, then away, like he expected the door to shut in his face. "You're the fire," he said. "Someone said there was a fire here for people with nowhere else." Willow came up behind Raven. She looked at the pup for a long moment. Then she leaned close to Raven's ear. "His pack threw him out," she whispered. "His mother too. He thinks no one will keep him." She pulled back. "I warned you quiet. Like we agreed." Raven's stomach dropped. The huts. She had three of them and not one was fit to sleep in. The roofs leaked. The third one she still hadn't torn down. She could offer this pup a bed and it would be a floor of wet dirt under a broken roof. "What's your name?" Raven asked. "Finn." He said it flat, like it didn't matter. Raven crouched to his level. "Finn, I'm going to be honest. The huts aren't done. None of them." She saw his face close, the way faces close when they've heard no before. "But I'm not sending you off." She stood and looked around the yard. Her eyes stopped on the campfire ring, the one circled with stones and logs. It still had fuel stacked beside it. Then she looked at the cottage itself, the crooked stone-and-wood place with gargoyles watching from the roof. "Willow, build up the fire," Raven said. "Big as it'll go." Willow grinned and went. Raven pulled Finn inside by his sleeve. In the corner sat a broad purple plant, its leaves wide as shields, vines curling down the pot. She'd been meaning to move it out. Now she dragged it near the hearth instead. "You sleep here," she said. "Inside. By the fire. Not a hut. My floor." Finn stared at the warm room, the stone hearth, the flames climbing higher through the window as Willow fed the campfire outside. He held the book tighter. "You don't know me," he said. "No," Raven said. "That's the whole point of this place." He sat slow, back against the big plant's leaves, like he still expected a trick. Raven dropped a blanket over his shoulders. He didn't say thank you. His sentences had run out. But his shoulders came down from his ears, and after a while his eyes closed. Willow came in from the yard, smelling of smoke. She looked at the sleeping pup, then at Raven. "He stays," Willow said. It wasn't a question. "He stays," Raven said. "But now I've got a mouth to feed and still no hut standing. The floor won't hold forever."