Morning pressed a thin light across the ceiling when Cordelia woke. Dante sat in a chair beside the bed, motionless. His hands rested loosely on the armrests; he looked tired. His face was drained of color; his gaze felt like a weight.
“Leah lost consciousness,” he said. His voice was even, distant. “When the bond broke, the shock dropped her. She may wake. Or may not.”
The words landed without warmth. Cordelia pushed up on her elbows.
“How—?”
Dante cut across her. “Answer me. Was this your plan with Daniel? Remove Silas while I was gone?”
“What? No.” Her chest tightened. “Daniel came to ask for a hearing. I told you. There was no plan. I didn’t know—”
How long has he been taking advantage of my absence from your rooms?" Dante asked, quiet and sharp. “How much was revealed to him because you asked for it?”
“He is only a friend. I'm faithful to you,” she said.
“He ran to you bleeding,” Dante said. “You touch him. You protected him with yourself.”
“He returned to the house wounded,” she said. “I held him up. I stood between you because you beat someone who was down. That is the truth.”
Dante's gaze was empty, and Cordelia felt as if she were talking to thin air. But then the man turned his gaze to her. “Silas is dead, Daniel killed him.” Dante’s face did not change. The cold in his eyes felt steadier than anger. “When I return to the den,” he said, “I will give the order. Daniel will be hunted and killed.”
The man watched her reaction closely. He was looking for confirmation of her betrayal: if there really was something between the two of them, she would be distraught, but only a slight emotion of regret flashed across her face. He looked away from her and stood up.
“Come,” he said.
without even worrying about changing clothes. The corridors were too cold and quiet, and even fireplaces fully loaded with wood could not dispel the cold. He opened a door and stepped back.
Leah lay on the narrow bed, still and pale. Her breathing barely lifted the blanket. A strand of hair clung to her damp temple; her lips were cracked. She looked already halfway gone.
Cordelia went to her knees and took her hand. “Leah,” she whispered. The fingers were cool. “It’s me. I’m here.”
Dante stood at the foot of the bed and watched. Cordelia checked the small pulse at the wrist. It fluttered, faint.
“Can she hear me?” she asked without looking up.
“Maybe,” Dante said coldly.
“Leah,” Cordelia whispered again, bending close. “You are not alone. Come back. Please.” She repeated it, changing only the order, because there was nothing else to offer.
She moistened Leah’s lips with a wet cloth, cooled her brow. The small tasks steadied her hands and did nothing for the tremor in her chest. Fear took a place there and would not move: fear for Leah, who might never wake; fear for herself, because the man at the foot of the bed was no longer burning for her. Cold resolve had edges sharper than rage.
“How can we help her?” the girl asked quietly. “Wolves must have rituals, legends, anything.”
"The bond is sacred. We don't break it even if we don't feel love for our partner. Wolves are banished for such things," Dante replied quietly as he held Leah while Cordelia changed the sheets.
They did not speak unnecessarily. Even when Cordelia attempted to engage him, he often ignored her. His only solace was caring for his friend. After several days, color began to return to her skin, but she remained unconscious.
“Tell me the truth,” Dante said suddenly, as if testing to see if repetition would change it. “Did you and Daniel plan this?”
“No.” She met his eyes. “I did not plan anything against you. I have not betrayed you. I loved you, even when it hurt.”
“You stood in front of him,” he said. His jaw tightened.
“I stood in front of you,” she said, forcing the word through her fear. “Because I love you, and you were about to do a thing you could not take back.”
For the first time, a flicker moved in his expression—pain, briefly visible, then shuttered. The chair leg creaked under his hand, and then his fingers released.
He looked at Leah’s still face. “If she wakes,” he said, “you will keep to her side today. I will see to the rest.”
“What is ‘the rest’?” Cordelia asked.
“Order," he said. "He had too much time on his hands.”
Cordelia pressed Leah’s hand to her cheek. The memory of her father’s warning rose without being called: Stay away from the wolves. Their smiles are a trap. She had answered that warning in her heart a dozen times with love, with bond, with faith in the man who had promised to be her shield. All of those were still true. So was this new truth: danger did not always come with bared teeth. Sometimes it sat in a chair and spoke softly of order.
“Dante,” she said, not pleading, naming him. “If you kill him without hearing him, you will cut something in yourself you cannot mend.”
He did not rise to the bait or the mercy. “I have heard enough,” he said.
He stepped into the hall, and something made him look back. He stayed on the threshold, watching the slow lift of Leah’s chest. His gaze fell on his wife, who was carefully tucking the blanket around her.
Cordelia kept to the rhythm she had made: cloth, lips, brow; whisper, pulse, breath. Time narrowed to that. When panic pushed, she swallowed it down, not giving in to it now. When hope tried to build on nothing, she pressed it flat and kept working.
The room did not change. The light edged warmer and then stilled. A draft traced the floor and faded. Her hands cramped; she smoothed Leah’s fingers until they eased. Somewhere, a door closed. Footsteps crossed the corridor and faded. Silas’s name beat once at the back of her thoughts and then was gone, taking Leah’s color with it.
Dante’s voice came again, low. “Did you plan this?”
Cordelia’s mouth went dry. She wiped Leah’s brow and felt the tremor in her own hand. She lowered her head until Leah’s knuckles touched her forehead. “Come back,” she whispered, steady because someone had to be. “Please come back.”
Fear sat with her and did not leave. So did the memory of her father’s voice. The two together made a hard, thin calm. She worked inside it and waited for a stir in Leah’s breath, or a softening in Dante’s eyes, or any sign that the day might yet bend. None came.