Selene’s POV
I do not sleep much again.
This is becoming a pattern I do not like, but for once the reason is not entirely bad. Last night, after the hall emptied and Halsey’s attendants had been settled into the east wing — the same wing Caden’s delegation occupied, which feels significant in a way I do not have time to examine — I lay in my room replaying the applause. The sound of it. The healer near the front, clapping first, before anyone else dared.
Three months of being a ghost in this house, and last night I was not one.
I get up before five anyway. Old habit. I make coffee for the study out of pure muscle memory before I remember that this morning is different, that I am not bringing it to Lucian, that I have somewhere else to be.
I bring it anyway. I leave it on his desk. Two
