The hospital was never truly silent. Even in the dead of night, the building breathed—a rhythmic, mechanical respiration of humming ventilators, the soft, rubberized roll of supply carts, and the distant, echoing footsteps of nurses moving down corridors that smelled perpetually of antiseptic and exhaustion.
Victoria had learned the rhythms of the maternity ward in the few days she’d been there. She knew the pauses between the shift changes. She knew that Clover slept best when the dimmers were turned down just enough to cast long, dancing shadows on the walls. She had finally begun to relax, believing that the fortress Charles had built around them extended into these sterile white halls.
She was half-awake, drifting in that hazy, post-childbirth state where the body is heavy and the mi
