The letter came on a January morning when the frost on the window was so complete it turned the light coming through it to something white and diffuse and entirely without shadow.
Elowen was at her desk when it arrived. She recognized Cassia's handwriting on the exterior and opened it immediately, which was not her usual practice with correspondence but was her practice with Cassia's letters now, because they had become the kind of letters that were worth reading without delay.
She read it standing at the desk.
I need to tell you something that I do not quite have the clinical vocabulary for, which is itself significant since clinical vocabulary is generally where I live. Three nights ago I dreamed about him. Not the grief dream I have had since his death, the one where he is present in
