We moved ontwo, which settled that argument.
Halfway up, Gideon’s dead weight surged unexpectedly as his body tried to be helpful or inconvenient, hard to tell.
“Don’t you dare,” Stella barked as we all started tilting toward the banister.
At the first landing, Limora gave brisk instructions like a seasoned matron organizing a tea table after an earthquake.
“Swap sides. Bella, give Maeve your shoulder. Skonk, for mercy’s sake, stop tugging his boots like you’re ringing a bell.”
Up the second flight we went, my arms beginning to tremble, back prickled with sweat. Keegan would hate this.
He would hate Gideon in his hall, Gideon under his roof, Gideon anywhere near the rooms he kept as refuge for travelers and students and me. And yet my gut sat strangely calm beneath the guilt. If the circle ever stood, this was how we got there, by bearing what we could not bear, across a threshold we would never have chosen.
At the top landing, Stella led us along the quieter north corridor where there were fewer rooms and fewer curious guests. Ember’s key, warm from Stella’s palm, turned again in another lock with a contented little sigh.
“Here we are,” Stella announced softly. “Fourth on the right.”
The door opened onto a small hall. Ember would’ve chosen it precisely because it felt forgotten. One more door inside, and that one held the room.
We maneuvered Gideon through the first and second thresholds with all the grace of a furniture delivery staffed entirely by people in dramatic capes.
Bella’s shoulder knocked a frame askew, and Vivienne reached up without missing a beat to straighten it. Twobble kicked the door shut behind us and then hopped on one foot, hissing at his toes.
Inside, Ember’s choice made sudden, perfect sense. The room was tucked under the eaves, ceiling sloping low at one side, a dormer window looking over the patio gardens. The bed was iron, old-fashioned, neatly made with a quilt worked in indigo and white with stars and little wolf shapes stitched along the border. A narrow writing desk stood beneath the window, and on the wall, a simple watercolor of the coastline. Nothing flashy. Everything deliberate.
And there, woven into the woodwork around the window and humming faintly along the doorframe, a charm Ember must have touched herself.
“All for the cause,” Stella murmured, repeating Ember’s words with a softness that wasn’t mockery.
“On the bed,” Bella said, practical as ever. “Head to the pillows. Let’s be gentle.”
“That’s a new one,” Skonk said, chuckling.
Somehow, we managed. Bella eased his shoulders. Limora smoothed the quilt back. Vivienne, efficient as a field nurse, rolled a towel and slid it under his neck. Skonk produced, of all things, a small flask and dabbed something sharp-smelling on a handkerchief, tucking it near Gideon’s collarbone. But Gideon still hit the mattress like a felled tree, finally allowed to be still. The iron clicked softly as the weight shifted.
“For the sins,” Skonk said solemnly.
“Which ones?” Twobble asked.
“Yes,” Skonk said, and that seemed to cover it.
I stood at the foot of the bed, my hands shaking, as my breath was finally allowed to be full. My muscles burned from assisting, and I couldn’t imagine not sleeping.
Gideon looked less like ruin and more like aftermath.
The shadows clung, but the room’s quiet didn’t entertain them. It was as if Ember had given us a still pool to set him in, so we could see the ripples honestly.
“Water,” Bella said.
Vivienne was already pouring from the pitcher left on the sideboard. Ember thought of everything, apparently.
Limora lifted Gideon’s head gently, and I pressed the cup to his lips. He swallowed once, twice, then turned his face toward the quilt, breath catching in a small sound that did not belong to someone invulnerable.
“He’ll need watching,” Limora said. “But you need to sit before you fall.”
So I sat.
“Thank you,” I said to no one and everyone. “For helping. For not asking.”
