Chapter 6: The Gate

I went down to the yard in my borrowed coat with the hood up.

Torin came down behind me and stopped on the bottom step.

"Say the word and he leaves," he said.

"I want to hear it."

"I'll be here."

He stayed on the step, near enough to reach me and far enough not to.

Rain ran off the hood onto my face.

Magnus stood at the foot of the hill with his head bare and water dripping from his hair.

Greywater was awake.

Lamps had come on in every window of the hall, and I could see shapes behind the glass.

Forty people were watching the King of the Crown Pack stand in the mud.

"I drove all night," he said.

"You drove all night to stand at a gate."

"Rowena, come home."

I let the silence run.

"Which home?" I asked.

"The castle. Your suite. It's yours, and it's waiting."

"My son is dead, Magnus."

"I know."

"I don't think you do."

His jaw worked, and I saw him decide to go on.

"I'll send her away," he said. "Jessamine and the boy go back to Ashgrove at the end of the week."

"The private wing closes. Nobody lives in it again."

"I'll sleep in your suite. I'll sit outside your door every night until you open it."

It sounded rehearsed, and I realized he had practiced it on the road.

"You sat outside her operating room all night," I said.

"Yes."

"I was one floor down."

He didn't answer.

"I counted the footsteps in the corridor," I said. "I knew which ones were yours. They stopped on the wrong floor."

"I thought you would live. The Healers said..."

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