At night Thunder slept in a hidden nook by the greenhouse, wrapped in coarse cloth, wolf tucked like a coiled spring beneath his ribs. He smelled of earth and a hundred different conceits. He dreamed in a loop: her face turning toward him, the small softness of it that had once barely belonged to him. He would jolt awake and listen for boots, for the long patient silhouette of Gregor pacing, for the soft clack of Sugar’s heels like punctuation.

Once, while the moon still rode low and silver, ...