The morning began with the scent of rain lingering in the air, the kind of dampness that seemed to make the world bristle, as if it were holding its breath. Ethan woke up before he had intended to, not from an alarm clock, but because quiet had weight this morning—a strange, hollow sort of stillness that advised him things were going to change.
He spent hours in bed, staring up at the guest room ceiling where he'd wound up in Zaria's beach house. He hadn't asked to be here; she hadn't invited him, exactly. But the storm that had stranded him had a way of making questions irrelevant. It was simply better there. Or perhaps it was better for him there.
Now, however, the sea outside was more peaceful, the sky lightening in streaks of gold. He could hear Zaria in the kitchen—measured, deliber
