Chapter 8: Eight Years of Reports

Matvei's POV

I stood in the cold bath with both hands braced on the tiles and told myself I had done nothing wrong.

It did not work.

She had walked into my room in bare feet, and she had put her hands on my chest, and she had said please.

My hands had not been steady since.

I shut off the water and dressed fast.

When I came back into the bedroom she was standing at my desk wrapped in the quilt, with the drawer open and the ribbon in her fist.

Her hair hung down her back in a red tangle.

She didn't turn around.

"Where did you get this?" she said.

I could have lied badly. Instead I told her the part that was true.

"Delphine gave it to me. The night I rode out of Lark. She said to keep it until I came back."

Sorrel's shoulders moved once.

"And the wolf?"

"I carve when I can't sleep."

"It's small."

"Anselm's nephew is four."

It was the first lie I had told her, and it came out smooth.

She turned and looked at me for a long time.

I had told her I never lied to a woman who could do something about it.

She knew exactly what I had just done, and she did not say so.

"All right," she said at last.

She put the ribbon back, closed the drawer, and walked past me to the door with the quilt trailing.

At the threshold she stopped.

"Last night," she said, not looking at me. "That was mine. Nobody gave it to me and nobody took it."

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