Chapter 137

He came no further than that one step. When I went up past him, he stood back against the doorframe to give me the whole width of the stair, and said nothing, and I was grateful for both.

In the passage I stopped with my back to him and my white hands folded into Rowan’s handkerchief.

“You can say it,” I said.

“There’s nothing I could say that you don’t already know.” His voice was low. “I wanted you to see that I was here. That’s all.”

“I saw.”

I went on up to the room Master Rook had given me, and lay on the bed with my hands on the warming-brick until the feeling came back into them, which took until supper. Somewhere in that time I decided what I would do in the morning, and slept on it, and woke still decided.

***

Luna Delphine was not a Luna any more, and nobody in the house knew what to call her.

The kitchen girls said the lady. Alpha Wynn said Mistress Delphine, with care, because he was a careful man. Master Rook