Chapter 43

On the thirteenth day, someone knocked on my door at noon and said, through it, “I know you’re in there. I can hear you not breathing.”

It was Lucien.

I had been lying on the bed with Persuasion face-down on my chest, not reading it. I had not read it for an hour. I sat up.

“Go away, Lucien.”

“I can’t. There are two very large Lycans behind me who go wherever I go, and they’ve followed me all the way up here, and if I go away now, they’ll think I’ve lost my nerve, and I’ll never hear the end of it.” A pause. “Also, I’ve brought cherries. And Saskia’s brought a knife, in case the cherries don’t work.”

“I don’t want cherries.”

“Everyone wants cherries. It’s the one thing the gods got right.” His voice changed. Not much. A shade. “Elowen. I’ll stand here till supper if I have to. I’ve stood outside worse doors.”

I don’t know why that was the thing that did it. Perhaps because it was true; I could hear it was true. I got up and opened the