Chapter 10: What the Lord Heard

Dorian's POV

She came to find me herself, at the third hour of the night, in a borrowed dressing gown with her hair loose.

I had been standing in my study with the window open for two hours, not reading the report in my hand.

"Garrick says there's a messenger," Morwenna said from the doorway. "Tonight. He says the Elder Mother's sending Verity another vial."

I put the report down.

"He told you that."

"Through my balcony door. He climbed the wall."

"He crossed my line."

"Yes. I'd like you not to kill him until after we've seen if he's lying."

I looked at her.

She stood with one hand on the doorframe and the other on her stomach, tired to the bone and holding herself straight anyway.

I had promised not to touch her.

I had not known, when I promised, how long it would take me to learn what that meant.

"Go to bed," I said. "I'll handle it."

"I'm coming."

"Morwenna."

"It's my baby."

She wasn't asking my leave, so I gave her my coat.

The postern gate at the back of Stonewater opens onto a goat track that runs down to the river.

We waited in the dark behind it, with the coat around her shoulders and my guard standing three paces back.

She was so close that I could smell her hair.

I kept my hands in my pockets.

"Does it still burn?" she whispered.

"Yes."

"Mine too."

"It will, until one of us does something about it."

She didn't answer that.

Neither did I.

At the fourth hour, a woman in grey came up the goat track.

She was small and quick, with a hood pulled over her head, and she carried a leather satchel against her chest.

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