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“I know, Hattie.” He’s staring at the ceiling, genuinely offended. “That was good oak.”

I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. And every time I laugh, I squeeze his knot, and he groans, and that makes me laugh even harder. We’re stuck like that for almost an hour, tilted sideways in a broken bed in the middle of my heat, and I’m cackling for most of it.

That night, we sleep on the floor again. Rowan drags the whole nest off the bed and puts it down in front of the fire. Every blanket. Every pillow. Both his shirts. And he puts it back exactly how I had it.

Exactly. Every damn corner. I check.

Of course he was watching me make it.

* * *

The heat breaks on the fifth morning.

I wake up, and I’m not burning anymore. Just warm. And sore. So sore. Every muscle I own hurts. My thighs are covered in little bruises shaped like his fingers. I’ve got a bite mark on my shoulder, one on my hip, and one on the inside of my thigh. None on my neck.

And I’m so happy I could cry.

So I do. A little. Rowan wakes up, finds me crying in the nest, and absolutely loses his mind.

“What’s wrong? What hurts? Where?”

“Nothing. I’m happy.”

“You’re crying.”

“Because I’m happy, Rowan.”

“That doesn’t make any sense.”

“Boy, humans do it all the time.”

“Humans are ridiculous.”

“Yeah.” I wipe my face and laugh. “We really are.”

He looks at me for a long second. Then he pulls me into his lap and just holds me while I cry and laugh and cry some more into his neck.

Five days. Every heat I’ve ever had, I spent by myself, counting the hours till it was over.

This time, I didn’t want it to end.

* * *

That afternoon, I’m clean and dressed and eating my weight in porridge when Rowan opens the front door and stops.

“Hattie. Come look at this.”

There’s a basket on the step. A big one, with a checked cloth over it. Inside, there’s a loaf of fresh bread, a crock of butter, a pot of chicken stew that’s still warm, a jar of pickles, and a dozen eggs. And on top, a note in Auntie Bess’s handwriting.

Heard from the night watchman. Eat something. Proud of you, baby. Tell that man the eggs are for him. Lord knows he needs the practice.

Under it, in Auntie Marigold’s handwriting: We want details.

I laugh so hard I have to sit down on the step. Rowan reads it over my shoulder and makes a face.

“I can make eggs.”

“You can make two eggs out of six.”