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I did not flinch.

A few minutes passed in silence.

Then, against my hair, Silas began to hum.

The sound was low and uneven, barely more than a vibration in the back of his throat.

I went still.

“Where did you learn that?”

“You.”

I lifted my head slightly.

“In the ravine,” he said. “And today.” He sounded almost embarrassed now. “It helped me. I thought it might help you too.”

I lay there with my face against his scarred chest while he hummed the same sound I had once used to reach him, and for the first time in longer than I could remember, some deep part of my body stopped bracing for what might happen next.

Eventually, his breathing slowed.

Silas shifted behind me until my back rested against his chest, then draped one heavy arm across my waist.

Within a few breaths, he was asleep.

I remained awake a little longer, listening to the wind move around the tower and the steady rhythm of his breathing behind me. On the windowsill, the tiny wooden wren faced the dark sea.

It was nearly dawn when I noticed the light.

At first it was so faint that I thought I was seeing moonlight on my skin.

Then I realized it was coming from my wrist.

My left hand rested across Silas’s chest, and around my wrist ran a thin silver line, narrow enough that I might have mistaken it for a scratch if it had not been glowing.

I stared at it without breathing.

Carefully, trying not to wake him, I turned my wrist.

The silver line moved with me, circling it completely. Its glow remained soft but unmistakable, brightening and fading in a slow rhythm beneath my skin.

I watched it pulse.

Then I felt the heartbeat beneath my palm.

The light was keeping time with him.

13

Chapter 13

Wren

The silver thread was gone by morning, and for a few hours I almost convinced myself I had dreamed it. Then, three nights later, Silas came up the tower stairs again, and the moment he stepped through my door, the thread shimmered back into existence around my wrist. It was faint but unmistakable, and after that I stopped telling myself I had imagined anything.

I spent the next afternoon in the Archive searching for silver thread, bond marks, visible mate bonds, and every variation of those terms I could think of. The catalog gave me four books on weaving, two studies of wedding customs involving silver ribbon, and absolutely nothing about a line that appeared on a woman's skin whenever a particular bear walked into the room.

I showed Silas the next night. He took my wrist in his hand and traced the mark with one careful fingertip. The thread brightened immediately beneath his touch.