Ruby’s POV
The healer glances at me from the doorway. “You can leave that.”
I realize I’m still holding the door. I let it go and it shuts with a low thud that sounds too final for something so ordinary.
Through the wood I hear the scrape of a stool leg. Water sloshing. The boy sucking in a breath through his teeth and trying not to make more sound than that.
I stand there for one beat too long.
Then another.
My wolf presses against my ribs.
This is not new here.
That is the part that makes me cold.
If it were chaos, one bad day and too many tempers, I could tell myself it would burn out on its own.
This is settled into the walls. In the way people lie too quickly. In the way injuries get renamed before anyone even asks. In the way a wounded boy is more afraid of being overheard
