At night Thunder slept in a hidden nook by the greenhouse, wrapped in coarse cloth, wolf tucked like a coiled spring beneath his ribs. He smelled of earth and a hundred different conceits. He dreamed in a loop: her face turning toward him, the small softness of it that had once barely belonged to him. He would jolt awake and listen for boots, for the long patient silhouette of Gregor pacing, for the soft clack of Sugar’s heels like punctuation.
Once, while the moon still rode low and silver, he slipped into the pantry with the pretense of collecting compost. The kitchen slept; the chef’s heavy breath filled the room like a drum. He set his palm on the cool wood of the table where Margaux had left a cup the day before.
The cup still smelled of jasmine tea and the faint hint of an expensi
