Page 133 of Mortdale

A strange, fulfilling silence sat with me in the empty drawing room for long hours after my grandfather had left. It was comforting.

“You were never alone in this world,” Logan said, leaning against the door.

“I haven’t been alone in a long time.”

“He’s your family,” he said when I wrapped my arms around his waist and rested my chin against his chest.

“You’re my family. All mine. My very own.”

“If you wish to leave with him—”

“You wouldn’t stop me?”

“I’d beg that you don’t.” His brow was pressed to mine as he whispered, “Please, don’t go. I wish I could be a better man for you, but I can’t. Not when I have to give you up. I can’t give you up.” His thumbs brushed across my jaw. “Piper will miss you and your rat. Especially the rat. I think I might miss him a little, too.”

Biting my smile down, I asked, “Is this a good time to tell you that he’s not a rat?”

“Piper told me. And that he’s tried to eat her several times since you both came here.”

I winced. “And you’re still okay with letting him stay here?”

“You would never let anything hurt Piper. Besides, he’s the one who found me and rushed me to you. I can’t hold a good grudge against him. But he really needs a fucking bath.”

“You’ll get used to the stench. Eventually. You’ll even learn to love the silly thing.”

“As long as you stay, I can learn to love anything. For you,” he breathed. “Anything.” His lips grazed mine. “I love you.”

I smiled into the kiss. “And I love you, Logan Duncan.”

Epilogue: fifteen years later

Willow

The heliostat buzzed against my ear as my scalpel sank into the rubbery, firm and dense muscle, slicing the organ down to the long axis. Pulling the heliostat back, I looked at the students who had left their desks and crowded around the necropsy table. “Who can tell me what that is called?”

Only one hand was raised out of the dozen.

I smiled under my mask at my youngest student. “Yes, Piper?”

“Transverse cardiac slicing.”

“Very well,” I said, and the rest of the students groaned as they always did.

Piper was something of a prodigy. From the moment she’d decided to become my protege at only six years of age, she’d swallowed knowledge like a starved, blood-hungry shark. I was certain that by the time she’d reach her twenties, she would have surpassed me in knowledge and skill.

The academy was barely ten years old, but it had already amassed a good number of students from all sides of Epiron. A little gift from my very rich duke of a husband. After the new queen had taken over from Ulric, things had changed, and borders had opened, welcoming creatures of all kinds. Over the years, understanding each other had become more important than trying to change one another. And the academy had been a good start. Traditions, culture, and religion were deeply rooted in us, and it was somewhat difficult to maintain subjectivity when we perceived them about each other. But our anatomy—on the inside, we were all the same. Made of flesh, blood, and bone.

“We will stop here today,” I said, removing my gloves and pulling my mask off. “Let’s let the rest catch up to you, shall we?”

Piper’s golden eyes gleamed as she lowered her head a little and followed the others out of the post-mortem classroom.

The halls were busy, busier than most days. The examination week was always my favourite week of the academic year.

Students lowered their heads as they passed by me, rushing in and out of the library, passing and pulling books and papers between each other. It was a full week where they needed to peel their faces off the book pages and learn to rely on each other.

My secretary was not at his post at the desk in front of my study even though fresh steam rose from his teacup that had been set too close to his typewriter for comfort.

I stretched my sore arms above my head, shutting the door behind me with the bottom of my foot. The mess in my study almost made me shudder, but it was exam season and there was nothing more I could do to control the amount of papers amassing in all corners of the tiny room.