Chapter 194

Sloane

By the sixth morning, the room was warm when I woke up.

That was the first thing I noticed, every day, before I opened my eyes. Not the light, or the sound of the stream, or the smell of woodsmoke and wet stone. The warmth. The first two nights we had slept in our coats, all three of us, in a heap by a fire that smoked so badly we had to leave the door open, with the wind coming down off the ridge and the snow blowing in across the floor. Now the chimney drew. The door shut. The wind went past the house instead of through it.

I lay there and listened to it go past, and didn’t move.

Malachi was already up. I could tell by the cold place at my back. I could hear him outside, somewhere above my head, and then the scrape of boots on stone, and a soft thump as he dropped down off the edge of the roof into the snow beside the door. Teague was snoring by the hearth, on the pallet of pine boughs and blankets he had made himself the first day and refused