Morning arrives without ceremony.
No alarms. No shouting. Just light pushing through the gap in the curtains and the muted city hum that says the world carried on while I slept. I lie still for a moment, cataloguing before I move – breath steady, limbs heavy but functional, the familiar gravity in my pelvis that tells me the baby is still there and still calm.
Too calm.
I don’t linger on it. Lingering turns into spirals, and I’m not doing that today.
The room smells like coffee by the time I sit up.
Nightshade is already awake, jacket off, sleeves rolled, a paper bag on the desk like it appeared there by intent rather thaneffort. He looks at me the way he did last night – not searching, not scanning – just checking that I still exist in the same place he left me.
“Morning,” he says.
“Is it?” I ask.
A corner of his mouth lifts. “Technically.”
There’s food in the bag. Actual food. Toast wrapped in paper, a tub of fruit, something egg-adjacent that smells better than it has any right to. Normal things. Deliberate things.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand without wobbling. I note that too, file it away without comment.
“Sit,” he says, already pulling the chair out.
I do, mostly because I was going to anyway.
He sets the bag between us, slides a coffee across the desk like an offering. Black. No sugar. He remembered. Of course he did.
“You need to eat,” he says.
“I need to know what we’re doing,” I reply.
His gaze doesn’t leave mine. “You need to eat first. Plot after.”
I snort despite myself. “That’s not an answer.”
“It is,” he says. “Just not the one you want yet.”
I consider pushing. Decide against it. There’s a tension in him that wasn’t there before – not fear, not anger. Readiness. Like decisions have already been made and he’s waiting for the right moment to let me see them.
Fine.
I unwrap the toast and take a bite. It’s warm. That alone feels like a minor miracle. My stomach accepts it without protest, no surge of nausea, no delayed punishment. I chew slowly, watching him watch me like this is the real assessment.
“You’re hovering,” I say.
“I’m observing.”
“Same thing.”
“Not to me.”
I eat anyway. The fruit disappears. The coffee goes with it. Everything stays down. I wait for the lag – the ache, the backlash – and it never comes.
I keep my face neutral.
“Where is everyone?” I ask.
“Busy,” he says.
