Page 62

❧

— Wren —

The first time Sparrow slept at Seb’s cottage, I stood in the doorway of her room watching her.

She was on her back with one fist beside her ear, asleep as if the new room were nothing. I’d expected to spend the whole evening listening for her. At Robin’s, her crib stood beside my bed. Here, she had a room of her own.

I trusted him with her. That wasn’t why I couldn’t leave the doorway. He’d made room for our daughter in a place he’d be moving out of soon, and she’d fallen asleep in it without a fuss. Her new crib stood where the afternoon sun wouldn’t reach her. Seb had put a chair by the window for her feeds.

“When did you do all this?”

“Saturday.”

“You bought a house last Friday and then a crib on Saturday for the place you’re moving out of?”

He shrugged. “She needed somewhere to sleep.”

I followed him into the front room, leaving Sparrow’s door open. He sat opposite me. I tried to imagine him without his Venom patch.

“What happens if they say no?”

“Who says no to what?”

“Seb. The vote. What if the club makes you choose?”

“Then I don’t have a cut.”

I stared at him. “Venom’s been your family for your entire adult life.”

“They still will be.” He leaned forward. “But if I have to choose between my patch and living here with Sparrow and you, I choose here.”

I heard the you. My chest went tight, but I wasn’t going to let him skip over what losing that cut might mean.

“You could lose the work too.”

“Wren, I’m the best in the state at what I do. There are eleven companies that would hire me before lunch. Or I work for your brother, which he’d hate. Or I spend my nights guarding a gate with a flask and a book.”

“You’d be a night watchman?”

“I’d be a night watchman in Kettlewell.” He gave me a look, as if I were missing the important part.

I nearly smiled. He was trying to make it sound easy, but I knew what Venom meant to him.

“When’s the vote?”

“Dutch hasn’t set one.”

“And if they vote you out?”

“I’ll hate it.” He looked at me. “But I’ll still be here.”

I’d told him I didn’t know if I could ever return to Millfield. He’d listened. He’d bought a house in Kettlewell and put a crib in a cottage he was about to leave, without asking me for a promise in return. I looked toward Sparrow’s open door. She’d grow up with him here whether we were together or not.

Seb had gone quiet. When I looked back, his eyes were on my mouth. He glanced away, too late.

“You can look at me,” I said.

“I am.”