Chapter 13: The Roof

I did not sleep.

Near two in the morning I climbed the iron ladder behind the linen room and pushed open the hatch to the roof.

My father used to take me up there on clear nights to find the wolf stars.

Torin was already sitting against the chimney with his bandaged hand on his knee.

"You're supposed to be resting," he said.

"So are you."

"I'm a guest on your roof. I'm allowed to be wherever I like."

I sat down on the slates beside him, with a hand's width of cold air between us.

Below us the yard was empty, and the gate stood open on the dark road where the black car had gone.

"Let me see that," I said.

"It's fine."

"The pin went in to the bone. Give it here."

He gave it to me.

I unwound the Healer's bandage under the light of the moon and found the cut swollen and shiny, red along the edges.

It ran across the back of his hand where the silver had torn it.

His fingers were long and scarred and warm.

I laid my thumb along the line of the cut, very lightly, and felt him go still.

"That hurts," I said.

"Not much."

"Your pulse is jumping."

"It does that when you touch me."

He said it flatly, to the chimney.

I kept hold of his hand.

I had told myself in the yard that I was cold, and I was lying then too.

I wound the bandage back on slowly, one turn at a time, and he watched my fingers and not the cut.

"Rowena."

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