A few days passed, and order settled around me, just as Margot had promised: vegetables in the morning, water before noon, laundry in the afternoon. My body also fell into a routine—but not in the right direction. Every morning the bandage on my stomach felt heavier, and by evening it grew warm, as if embers smoldered beneath it. The skin shone red, yellowish fluid gathered at the seams of the stitches, and it gave off a smell that even the noise of the kitchen couldn’t cover. I couldn’t look at it for long. The iron on my wrist dulled the wolf’s strength; what he would normally heal in a night, he could now only barely hold together. The wolf growled within me: “Keep it clean. Water, rest. Healer.” And every morning I answered him: “Later. Tonight.” But at night, I never went.
It wasn’t
