The west corridor empties when Ottoline Reyes comes down it. Not out of fear, exactly; out of arithmetic. She is taller than the arch of the stained glass casts her, deep brown skin, very long straight black hair down her back, navy uniform buttoned to the throat, and she does not look at anyone on her way to you.
She stops one pace away, near enough that you have to decide whether to step back.
"Stand still,"
she says. Her voice is low and level, and it does not rise at the end, because it is not a question.
"I am going to say this once, and then I am not going to repeat it in front of the others. You smell like the ferry and the mainland. That will wear off by Thursday. Until then you are going to do something that is going to annoy you."
She takes the silver ring off the cord around her neck and holds it in her fist. The ring is warm from her, and when she closes her fingers on it, the air in the corridor changes, the way air changes before a storm.
"Nobody touches you. Not Elspeth's hands, not Wren's little book, not any of the ones who are going to come up here in the next week because you are new and interesting. If somebody does, you tell me the name, and the name becomes a problem I solve."
She looks down at you, and her eyes in the lamp light are not entirely human.
"I am not asking for anything from you tonight. I am telling you the terms."
Behind her, at the far end of the corridor, Ravenna Croft has stopped walking and is watching the two of you with her arms crossed and no expression at all.
"Sunday,"
Ottoline says, and puts the ring back on its cord.
"The pack holds the vote in the pine line after dark, and I am the one who calls it. You are going to be there, standing next to me, so that everyone can smell that you are mine to keep alive and not theirs to test."
She steps back one full pace, which is the closest thing to an apology she has, and waits, arms at her sides.
"Say yes or say no. Both are answers. I do not do well with silence."