For now, she already saw the shape of her impact, standing in the space Grim had left behind, carrying out Death’s orders in his absence.
Baron reached into his pocket, pulling out a folded parchment. “Ah. I almost forgot.” He tapped the seal. “Ilys, you have a letter.”
Ilys turned the parchment in her hands, breaking the wax seal. Neat, careful strokes curved across the page in Rowenna’s unmistakable hand. She skimmed over the first few lines, her quiet home, the longing threaded between words, the space left behind where Ilys should have been. Then, her stomach dropped.
She read the line twice. Then a third time, as if the ink might shift beneath her stare, as if Rowenna’s words would rearrange themselves into something else. But the letters did not move.
Baron, ever watchful, caught the shift in her expression. “What?”
Ilys groaned, dragging a hand down her face. “The fat sod got her pregnant.”
Baron choked on a laugh, leaning back in his chair, amused despite himself. Grim huffed, shaking his head with a low chuckle.
“You will be an auntie,” Grim mused.
Ilys hummed, feigning deep contemplation. “I will swaddle him in my veils.”
Baron made a noise of protest. “That feels sacrilegious.”
“You know nothing,” Ilys shot back.
Grim smirked, though his fingers still toyed absentmindedly with a piece of twine.
Ilys traced the edges of the parchment, her gaze skimming over the words again, even though she already knew what they said.
“Perhaps I will travel to her,” she suggested, keeping her voice casual, light. “Meet the babe.”
She did not miss the way the room shifted. Baron’s amusement dimmed, his jaw tightening. Grim’s hands stilled over the board, his knuckles flexing. They did not need to say it. She already knew their answer.
Ilys smirked, though it did not quite reach her voice. “Yes, well. I knew that, didn’t I?”
Grim spoke first. “Ilys.”
She shook her head. “Hush.” Her fingers curled around the parchment, pressing the creases deeper into the page. “I’m fine,” she said smoothly, her gut twisting at the lie. “So much excitement today. Makes one weary.”
Neither of the men looked convinced, but she did not give them room to protest.
She pushed up from the table, forcing a smirk on her lips. “You two prattle on. Perhaps we’ll find time for a game or a reading later.”
She wiggled her fingers in mock farewell, turning before they could see the way her expression faltered, the way her throattightened. The emotions curled in her stomach, combative and restless, but she swallowed them down, pressing them deep beneath the surface.
“Ilys.”
A hand shook her awake, firm but gentle.
She groaned, blinking bleary eyes open to find Grim kneeling beside her bed, his face shadowed in the dim candlelight.
“Ilys,” he called again, low and urgent. “There is a beast in the castle. We must run.”
A mass landed on her waist, small but solid.
Still half-dazed with sleep, she frowned. “Grim, my veil,” she requested, reaching groggily for it.
But then she sat up, properly taking in the supposed beast pressing its paws into her stomach.
A pup.
Perched on her bed, dark-furred and scruffy, and looking up at her with bright, young eyes, its tail thumping lazily against her blanket.
