Lena's POV
Bastian's note reached me forty minutes after I had made my decision.
It said only: He is finished. His study. He is asking for you.
I read it twice and then I folded it along its crease and set it on the desk. The evening light through my window had gone blue-gold, the particular quality of dusk that came late and unhurried. Outside, the pack was settling into its ordinary nighttime sounds.
I was not afraid. That surprised me slightly. I had expected to be afraid, had been braced for it, and instead what I found when I checked was something quieter and more deliberate. The feeling of having made a decision and being on the other side of the making.
I walked to Damien's study.
The door was open. He was standing at the window when I came in, not sitting, with his back to th
