Page 70 of The Thirteenth Count

From this position, Fern couldn’t even see the third tier as the terrace extended past. Second tier was little more than a smattering of dark roofs and narrow lanes, half-swallowed by drifting red. Farther down, Ashford Cross barely looked real at all. A smear of shadow. Pinpricks of wardlight. The home she’d spent her whole life thinking too large to escape now looked small enough to crush beneath a thumb.

Fern looked away too quickly.

Cassius stepped onto the terrace as if the wind had no right to touch him. His coat shifted around his legs, but the rest of him stayed exactly as it was—straight-backed, steady, irritatingly composed.

He stopped several paces from the door and looked back. “Come out.”

“It’s freezing,” she said. “White Season has been especially unforgiving this year.”

“It has.”

“There are rooms inside.”

“Warm rooms tell me very little, Miss Silverbell.”

Her breath picked up. “About what?”

“You.”

She almost laughed. But the wind swallowed the sound before it had a chance to become anything useful. “You dragged me out of bed, laughed at my trousers, fixed my hair like you’re my mother, and brought me to the edge of the mountain because you want to learn about me?”

“I brought you here because I believe you’ve learned enough to control yourself when the room is kind to you.”

Fern snorted. She couldn’t help it.

His gaze moved briefly to her hand on the doorframe. “I’d like to see what remains when it isn’t.”

“I have control, Cassius.”

“Then step away from the door, Fern.”

Fern’s mouth shut.

The wind moved between them, worrying at her coat, tugging at the loose ends of her hair. Sprout’s claws dug lightly through the fabric at her shoulder.

Cassius did not repeat himself.

Of course he didn’t. Repeating himself would imply he cared whether she obeyed quickly or not. He simply stood there, waiting, as though the terrace, the cold, the drop, and the whole impossible morning were all pieces he had arranged and expected her to walk through.

Fern hated being arranged.

She forced her hand from the frame.

One step.

The stone beneath her boot felt steady enough, which somehow made it worse. It should have trembled. It should have warned her that nothing living belonged this high above the valley with only a carved wall between her body and the fog below.

Another step.

The wind struck harder once she left the shelter of the doorway. Her eyes watered. She blinked fast and lifted her chin before Cassius could comment on it.

He saw anyway.

“Shoulders,” he said.

Fern stiffened.

“Not up by your ears.”