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I can't.

The sky goes gray at ten past six.

The door opens behind me.

She's in the cardigan with the stretched sleeves and wool socks and nothing else I'm going to think about. The bruise under her jaw came up overnight. Purple-brown, a chain's worth of small marks.

"How long have you been out here?"

"Since you got back."

"That was seven hours ago."

"Seven and a half."

She looks at the frost line four inches from my boots. Then at me.

"You're going to scare the paper guy."

"He's already scared of me."

A smile starts at the corner of her mouth and then dies shortly after. "Come inside before you freeze."

"I don't freeze."

"Corbett."

I get up.

Her hallway smells like clove and cold coffee. She stops long enough to lift her grandmother's quilt off the porch rail, where I left it, washed and dried.

Her hand stays flat on it a second too long.

She doesn't say thank you. It's the only reason I can stand it.

She sits on the third stair. I sit on the floor, because standing over her feels like something my father would do.

"I went to the shop last night," she says.

"I know."

"The mirror said nine days."

I wait.

"Then it said YOU ARE HIS." She's looking at her hands. "And then there was a space. Room for one more word. It got half a stroke in and the whole thing cleared."

Mate, my wolf says, and it isn't a whisper.

"Do you know what the last word was?"

Yes.

It sits in my mouth like a stone. I could tell her right now. Then she'd have the truth.

"I know what it wanted to say."

Her head comes up. "Then say it."