WREN
After I was done examining the couples, I started looking for a way to leave. Some reasonable excuse; a follow-up I needed to check on, a delivery I needed to make before the apothecary closed, anything that would let me slip out before whatever was about to happen actually happened.
I had been present for enough deaths in my life. I didn't need to collect another one, especially not this kind.
"Stay," Briggs said, before I'd gotten a single word out.
I looked at him.
"It's better," he said, "to have someone witness it. At a time like this." His voice came out calmer than I'd ever heard it, almost like he was talking himself into the sentence as much as he was saying it to me. Like he needed to hear himself say it out loud to believe it was actually true.
I thought it over for
