All Chapters of The Lullaby of Wolfbane: Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Melody’s office is the kind of place you could almost forget you’re inside the capital. Not because it isn’t polished, it is, but because it feels real. Lived in. Like someone has spent too many nights here refusing to let people die. Shelves of labeled jars line the walls: dried herbs, powdered roots, tinctures that catch the lamplight like amber. The desk is organized chaos, stacked reports, clipped charts, a half written note in Melody’s tight handwriting. Her handwriting. That detail keeps punching holes in my disbelief. I sit in the chair across from her, hands clasped together so hard my fingers ache. My elbow still has a fresh bandage from the blood draw, and the memory of the vial labeled WOLFSBANE sitting in my trunk makes my stomach feel permanently tilted. Melody moves like she’s made of purpose. She doesn’t fidget. She doesn’t hesitate. She collects a small glass, a jar of dried lea

If the capital had a favourite hobby, it would be dressing wolves up like dolls and calling it tradition. By late afternoon, the dormitory is a storm of fabric and perfume and sharp laughter that means nothing good. Girls crowd mirrors, curl hair, pin jewelled clips like they’re fastening armour. The air hums with frantic energy, hope wrapped around desperation, tied off with silk. I sit on my bed and stare at my schedule like it might spontaneously combust. DINNER BANQUET — 19:00. ATTENDANCE MANDATORY. Mandatory. Like my stomach hasn’t already made its opinion clear. Tessa flits around the room, practically vibrating. “Okay, Abby, we need to do something with your hair,” she announces, hands on hips like she’s a general preparing for war. “If we’re going to be forced into a royal meat market, we might as well look like we bite.” “I do bite,” I mutter. “Then we’ll make you look l

After the swordfight outside, I expect returning to the banquet hall to feel like walking back into a cage. It does. But it’s a cage with music. A cage with candlelight and satin and girls who laugh like they’re not measuring each other’s throats for weakness. Adrian peels away the second we re enter, smoothly, professionally, sliding back into the background where duty sits on his shoulders like armor. No glance that lingers. No secret word. No sign that ten minutes ago he caught me like I mattered. It’s almost impressive how quickly he disappears into his role. I hate that I notice. I make myself walk back to our table like nothing happened, because in this place, the moment you look flustered is the moment someone decides to use it. Tessa’s eyes are huge when I sit. She opens her mouth, then thinks better of it and clamps it shut like she’s physically restrainin

By afternoon my body feels like it’s been rewired by someone impatient. Not in a dramatic, lightning, strike way, more like my senses are being tuned one string at a time, and every so often someone plucks them too hard. My hearing is too sharp. My skin is too aware of air movement. Smells cling to my brain like fingerprints. It’s progress. It’s also exhausting. The worst part is that I can’t tell what’s real danger and what’s just my system waking up and screaming, Everything is new, everything is loud, everything is too much. I’m learning to live in that line. After the prince led circuit, we’re herded back toward the dormitory with the usual tight smiles from attendants and the usual warning tone from guards: don’t wander, don’t argue, don’t breathe wrong. Tessa keeps chattering to fill the space. “Okay, Liam is officially the sweetest,” she announces as we clim

The capital wakes up hungry. By breakfast, everyone knows about the kitchen. Not the truth, never the truth, not cleanly, but the shape of it. The story has already been chewed, swallowed, and spit back out in pieces that fit whatever agenda the teller prefers. “Kara was arrested.” “Kara cried.” “I heard Abby accused her.” “I heard it was wolfsbane.” “I heard Selena’s name.” That last one is always whispered, never spoken like the others, because Selena Crestwood’s family money buys silence the way it buys silk. Tessa keeps her chin up anyway, sitting beside me with the determined expression of someone refusing to let optimism be bullied out of her. Briar, on the other hand, looks like she’s memorizing the room for later use in