The bed collapsing on the floor. He was fixing it right now, and I was grateful he hadn’t asked one of the staff to do it. I’d never be able to look them in the eye again.
My skin tingled at the thought of what we’d do in the fixed bed tonight.
I caught myself smiling at nothing.
Acorn watched me from his basket on the windowsill with the stillness of someone who’d already won a game I hadn’t known we were playing. He’d curled his tail around his body and groomed his whiskers, turning him into the picture of innocence.
The wolf who keeps his witch well-pleased, knows many ways to bring her ease,he said.
“You’re insufferable.”
His tail flicked once.
I sipped my tea and studied him.
“Where did you go last night while we were dancing? I saw you climbing into the canopy with another squirrel, one with the white patch on his or her ear.”
A lady’s secrets keep, where branches high and shadows deep. What passes between squirrel and tree, is not for witches’ eyes to see.
“So there is something happening with you and her.”
He groomed his whiskers with one paw, the gesture deliberately casual.Perhaps. Perhaps not. A squirrel need not explain his evening constitutionals to those who spent their own night breaking furniture.
I shook my head, my lips thinning. “The furniture will be fine.”
The bed would disagree. As would the sword.
“That sword was poorly mounted.”
A convenient excuse.
“You’re changing the subject.”
He chittered and turned his attention to the window opening, dismissing me with the kind of regal indifference only small creatures could pull off. I returned to my notes, trying to focus on crystallization patterns instead of the fact that my squirrel knew exactly what Feral and I had been doing last night.
I took another sip of my tea, this time actually tasting it. The floral blend I preferred. He’d remembered that too.
The office door opened, and Feral walked in carrying a bucket of water in one hand and a rag in the other. He didn’t look at me, just moved directly to his father’s side of the room and set the bucket down on the floor with a soft thunk. He wore simple work clothes. Sleeves rolled to his elbows. Hair tied back in a way that suggested he’d done it quickly without caring how it looked.
I watched him dip the rag in the water and wring it out before starting on the desk surface. Years of grime came away in dark streaks, turning the water in the bucket murky within seconds. A spell took care of that, but it would get dirty again if he kept going.
The wood he revealed was lighter than I’d expected, showing grain patterns that had been hidden under dust and time.
He worked slowly. The top of the desk first, following the sides. Then the drawers, pulling them out one at a time to clean them inside and out. The bookshelf came next, each shelf cleared and wiped clean before the books went back in the same order they’d been removed, though he gently wiped them off them first.
This was a reclamation. He couldn’t face the weight of his father’s space and all its abandoned grief without someone else here to anchor him. He’d anticipated I’d witness it without making it into something that required explanation.
But he could do it beside me.
I returned to my notes and pretended not to notice the way his hands paused on objects that probably carried memories I hoped he’d one day share. A stone paperweight. A wooden box with a painted unicorn on top. The small wolf carving I’d found in the drawer.
We were two people occupying one space. The sound of water wrung from cloth and the scratch of my pen on paper filled the silence between us.
In some ways, it felt more intimate than last night. Less about heat and more about trust.
Acorn leaped and flew from the windowsill to the top of the bookshelf. He settled with a small chirp, his tail high, and began grooming himself while watching Feral’s progress with the air of a supervisor inspecting quality of work.
Old rooms hold old bones, old dust holds old grief. The wolf who cleans brings both relief.
