Isabel arrived at Frostholm on a gray afternoon, four days exactly after the courier's warning, stepping out of a black car with a hand pressed protectively to the curve of her stomach and an expression of such delicate, practiced sorrow that Rhea felt her jaw tighten before Isabel had even said a word.
She was visibly pregnant now, further along than Rhea would have guessed from the letters. Isabel wore it the way she wore everything, like a costume chosen to produce a specific effect on whoever was watching, and today the audience was Caden.
"Rhea." Isabel's voice carried across the courtyard, warm and wounded in equal measure, the tone she'd perfected over eighteen years of an audience that never looked closely enough to notice the seams. "It's so good to see you. I've missed you."
"
