Lena's POV
I slept deeply for the first time since I had arrived at Stormridge.
I had not realized how much weight I had been carrying until some portion of it had been given over. Not removed. Not resolved. But shared, which was different, and which it turned out my body had needed badly enough that when the need was finally partially met, it let go into genuine sleep rather than the surface vigilance I had been calling rest.
I woke before dawn. The room was dark and still and cold at the edges. I lay in it for a moment before moving, letting myself be present in the first uncomplicated quiet I had had in weeks.
Then I got up and dressed and went to find my mother.
She was already in the small courtyard off the service corridor, which she had discovered in her first days here and had
