Chapter 9: Anders's POV

Anders's POV

I told myself I was only watching her because she'd taken my gate.

That lasted until the fourth day.

By then I knew she took her coffee black.

I knew she checked the lock on the guest wing twice before she slept.

I knew she never walked past the East Gate post without touching it with two fingers.

She did it.

I asked Torben about it over a cold lunch in the patrol house.

"Why does Marit look at me like I'm a ghost?"

Torben stopped chewing.

"Like you died," he said.

"Like I'm someone she already buried."

"Huh."

"Don't say huh. Say something useful."

"I'd say you spent a year looking at her the way you look at a fence post," Torben said.

"She's finally looking back, and you don't like what she sees."

"She sees nothing. She hasn't looked me in the eye for more than a breath since the Moon Hall."

"She looks at you when you're not looking."

I put down my fork.

"Every time you walk out of a room," Torben said, "she watches the door."

That night I went to see Linnea.

Hallvard kept her in a sunny back bedroom with a white quilt and a shelf of pressed flowers.

For four years I had gone there nearly every day.

I had never asked myself why.

She had saved my life at Ashfall.

That was the whole answer, the only one I had ever needed.

She was propped up in bed in her cardigan.

When I came in, she put down her book and held out both hands.

"Anders. You came."

"I said I would."

"I've been so worried," she said, and her eyes filled.

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