Elaine walked the grounds while the house still slept. Frost lay over the stone paths like a thin, white skin. Her breath went out of her in pale plumes and vanished. Everything up here was the color of bone and waiting.
She had come outside to let the fresh air clear her mind. To scold herself. And she was doing a thorough job of it.
She didn't scold herself for wanting him. A woman could want a monster; that was a story as old as women and monsters both. A glitch in the meat that meant exactly nothing. She scolded herself for the other thing. For the way the buried coal of her had recognized the darkness in the library and leaned toward it.
She had been sent to be a lamp. But for a single, horrifying breath, she had been a compass.
That wasn't a woman wanting a man. That was her ligh
