Chapter 24: The Next Pup

The doorway hummed softly in the nursery wall, and the dim room on the other side did not change.

The couch stayed grey, and the screen stayed bright.

Lucas stood in front of it with a sleeping pup in the crook of his arm.

THE DOOR CLOSES AT THE STROKE OF TWELVE, said the system.

Behind him, nobody spoke.

He looked at the light, and thought of the cold flat, the takeaway menus and the last chapter of a book he had never finished.

Then he looked back over his shoulder.

Three men knelt in a row on the boards in the moonlight, in their nightshirts, with their hands open on their knees.

In the cradles by the window, a black-haired girl and a red-haired boy slept side by side.

The silver-haired boy breathed against Lucas's collarbone, warm and small.

Nobody had asked him to stay, and nobody would.

They were only waiting, and the waiting was the question.

"System," Lucas said.

YES.

"I stay."

ARE YOU SURE?

"I have a nursery, three husbands and a seat on a council that has to be taught to take naps in the afternoon. I'm sure."

THE DOOR WILL NOT OPEN AGAIN.

"Good."

The light folded in on itself, and the wall was only plaster again.

Nobody moved for a moment.

Then Troy let out a whoop that woke every pup in the house.

It took an hour to settle them.

Julius sang to the red-haired boy in a rough, tuneless baritone that, astonishingly, worked.

Felix wrote the date in the black book, and underneath it, in his small exact hand: Stayed.

Troy carried the girl up and down the corridor, whispering what he planned to teach her about axes.

At last Lucas put the silver-haired boy into his cradle and straightened, with one hand in the small of his back.

"Right," he said, to the dark room. "Who is ready for the next pup?"

The sound of settling stopped.

"Me," said Troy at once.

"Me," said Julius. "I am the oldest."

"By a year. I am the one who was marked first."

"That is not a qualification."

"I have been counting the nights since the last cycle," said Felix. "It is statistically my turn."

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