The compound settled into its night the way it always did — gradually, one thread at a time, the bond's warmth shifting from the collective heat of a full table to the quieter, dispersed warmth of people in their separate rooms, their separate endings of the day.
Rowan had been put to bed with some negotiation about Steve's sleeping arrangements, which ended with Steve on the windowsill because, as Rowan explained, he was First Rock and First Rock needed a good view.
Darius had sat in on the bedtime ritual the way he always did when nothing prevented it, which was most evenings, the three-book sequence and the song and the increasingly elaborate back-and-forth about what constituted an appropriate bedtime for a seven-year-old with opinions.
When they came out of Rowan's room into the co
