I find her later in the medical corner. Organizing nothing into something. Salvaged bandages on crates. Four bottles of medicine lined like soldiers.
She looks small. Lost. Today's weight crushing. Shaking—cold or shock or both.
"Hey."
Doesn't turn. "Seventeen people died today."
"Yes."
"Because I painted you."
Want to say no. Would've happened anyway. Probably lies and we're past those.
"Benedikt just learned proper tea. Asha was showing me her poem tomorrow. Tomás had a daughter." Whispers. "And I'm worried about clean sheets."
She knew them. Days, and she knew them better than my years.
"Seventeen people," she repeats. "And I'm worried about sheets."
Something in her eyes has cracked. Optimism meeting reality's wall.
I reach without thinking. Shadows surge to comfort. Catch myself. Pull back. She doesn't need the Shadow King's darkness.
"Boss." Aldric in doorway. Trembling. Corvus behind with enforcers. "I didn't. Swear I didn't."
Moment breaks. I'm the Shadow King, not the man who wants to wrap her in shadows.
"We'll see."
Leave her with salvaged supplies and nowhere to go. Don't look back. Can't. Shadows scream, trying to stay. Have to force them to follow.
Aldric sobs innocence. Maybe lying, maybe not. Someone betrayed. Someone dies.
But I hear her voice behind me. Talking to supplies or rats or walls.
"Clean sheets. Someone knows where to find clean sheets. People need dignity here. Especially here."
After everything. Still worried about sheets. About dignity. Making frozen hellholes bearable.
My shadows pull toward her hard enough to hurt.
Traitors later. First, sheets.
Because apparently I'm the Shadow King who sources bedding for women destroying me with kindness.
The Shadow King whose magic chose her.
And the worst part? I'm already calculating which safe houses might have decent linens.
Chapter 14
The flatbread's on fire again.
Just the edges, but smoke's filling the warehouse and Ridge has been coughing for twenty minutes even though he insists he's fine. I poke at it with the bent fork I found earlier, trying to flip it on the salvaged metal sheet we're using as a cooking surface. The whole setup wobbles—really need another brick for that corner.
"It's done," I tell Finn, who's watching with deep concern. "Very done. We're calling this done and moving on."
The warehouse doesn't have a kitchen, obviously. What it has: a metal drum with holes punched in it, some wire mesh that might have been fence once, and my determination to feed forty people with two bowls and whatever optimism remains. Earlier I saw rats working together to carry something. They have better organizational skills than we do.
