The room didn't move.
That was the worst silence yet. Not empty. Full. Wolves hearing something described in plain terms and measuring their own memory against it, one event at a time. A missed meal. A locked door. A wound no one treated. A winter night everyone knew about and didn't speak of.
This was why I'd wanted the full pack present.
Cruelty survived best in fragments. One wolf saw one thing. Another saw something else. Each believed what they'd seen could be explained if set in the right frame. Put every fragment into one structure and the explanation died.
I looked up from the page.
"You knew what those conditions were," I said, and this time I addressed not only Rodan but the room itself. "You knew where she was housed. You knew what was on the chain. You knew food was withhe
