The murmur of my own confession lingered in the suite's dimness like a freed ghost.
"The baby is yours. It always has been yours." Having blurted out the truth, even in the secrecy of his unconsciousness, left a physical emptiness in my stomach, a mixture of a breath of absolute peace and a blind panic that quickened my pulse. I looked at our hands intertwined on the damp sheet. His knuckles, firm and large, finally felt warm, steady, free from the violent vibration the fever had imposed on them for hours.
I remained motionless at the edge of the imperial mattress, watching the regular rise and fall of his chest. The Istanbul drizzle had stopped outside, leaving in its place a dense dawn, a metallic gray that seeped through the slits in the curtains and drew bluish lines across Sebastian
