The voice remained on.

Low. Controlled. Familiar—and not.

"Leya…"

A murmur—icy or gentle, neither. A sound that did not request requested not. It remained just so without her leave. Like a thread pulling at her beyond the door just so.

Her own eyes dim with fever and exhaustion, she blinked, but sat up a little more in her backroom bed—a little.

Her fists clenched in the blanket spread over her lap, thin blanket now buckler, a lifeline to something sacrosanct.

> Who was ...