LOGINEzra found me carrying two bowls upstairs.
He looked at them.
Then at me.
“Did you steal dinner?”
“No.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I borrowed dinner.”<
Vivian was standing in my old bedroom when I found her.I stopped in the doorway.“That’s unsettling.”She looked over.“What is?”“You.”“Thank you.”“In here.”“That’s marginally better.”The room had survived the attack untouched.Apparently even war had standards.The pale curtains still hung beside the window.The narrow bed was still there.So was the dresser.Vivian had opened the bottom drawer.“What are you doing?”“Checking which rooms can be reassigned.”I looked around.“My room?”“You haven’t slept here in weeks.”“That feels rude.”“It is also true.”I stepped inside.The room seemed smaller than it had when I first came home.Maybe because I no longer felt eleven.Vivian closed the drawer.Her gaze moved to the dresser.Then stopped.I followed it.The scratch beside the handle was still there.Thin.Crooked.Almost invisible unless you knew where to look.Vivian touched it.“You dropped my music box.”I remembered.“You cried for an hour.”“It was important.”“It didn’
Cassian looked surprised when I knocked.That was probably fair.Until yesterday, almost every conversation between us had happened because he asked for it.Today, I had come looking for him.“You’re busy?”“No.”He glanced at the papers on his desk.“I can become less busy.”“That sounded suspiciously eager.”“I’m attempting restraint.”“You should keep attempting.”The corner of his mouth moved.I sat across from him.Most of the papers carried the Moonfall seal.I recognised it now.A pack connected to me before I had been old enough to understand what belonging meant.Cassian waited.“I want to ask about Mum.”Something changed in his face.“Liora?”“Yes.”“What do you want to know?”For months, every question about my mother had been about what happened to her.What had Victor done?What had she known about the Ashvane bloodline?What had she known about the pendant?Today I wanted something else.“What was she like?”Cassian stared at me.“That was apparently too broad.”“No.”H
I found Maren in the council room before breakfast.That was not where I expected to find her.I had been looking for Ezra.Instead, Maren sat at the long table with four open folders and an expression that suggested somebody had already irritated her.Harwick stood across from her.That explained the expression.“I am not suggesting you cannot attend,” he said.“You are suggesting I should not be expected to.”“That is not the same thing.”“It is close enough.”
Ezra found me carrying two bowls upstairs.He looked at them.Then at me.“Did you steal dinner?”“No.”His eyebrows lifted.“I borrowed dinner.”“From whom?”“The kitchen.”“That is usually called taking.”“They knew.”“Did they?”I kept walking.Ezra followed me.
By midday, the south wing had doors again.Not all of them.Three still leaned against the corridor wall waiting for hinges, and someone had painted a large red cross over the room where the ceiling was still unsafe. But twelve rooms had been cleared.Nine had beds.Seven had families waiting.Vivian stood in the middle of the corridor with a key ring in one hand and three lists in the other.“You’re smiling,” I said.“I am not.”“You are.”“I have keys.”“That is apparently very exciting.”“It is when people have been sleeping on floors.”Fair.Workers moved around us carrying folded blankets, small tables and whatever furniture had survived the attack. The air smelled of sawdust and fresh plaster instead of smoke.Maren came through the open doorway behind us, hair tied back and sleeves rolled to her forearms.Her eyes moved over the repaired wall, the windows and the stack of bedding near room four.“How many are moving in?”“Seven households today,” Vivian said. “More tomorrow if
The old stable office still smelled faintly of leather.Vivian noticed the shelves before I noticed the dust.“Those are not organised.”I looked at the rows of books along the wall.“They look organised.”“They’re arranged by size.”“That counts.”“No.”I let her have it.The transport duty books occupied the bottom shelf. Vivian checked the dates while I pulled out anything covering the week before the attack.The third ledger gave u







