Isabel was gone by dawn, exactly as ordered, and Frostholm exhaled around her absence like a held breath finally released. Rhea told herself, for the first two days, that the words Isabel had thrown at her on her way out the door had gone with her.
They hadn't.
They surfaced instead in small, quiet moments, the way old wounds always did. In the space between waking and fully awake, when her mind wasn't yet armored enough to keep them out. In the pause before she answered Caden across the breakfast table, a half second longer than it used to be, while some old, tired voice asked her what exactly she thought she was doing, letting herself want something this big.
You think he actually wants you. You'll be exactly what you were at Ironpeak. Alone.
She knew, somewhere rational and clear-ey
