Chapter 2

Mara's POV

His gaze stopped at my outline against the bed. He didn't reach for the switch.

"It's three in the morning. Why are you sitting in the dark? Can't you even get her into bed?"

Elsie tried to pull him farther inside. "Mommy won't—"

"Go lie down with your mother."

He guided her past the door. She looked back at him before going to my body.

I reached for his arm. "Please. Take her with you. I can't look after her."

My fingers went through his sleeve, his wrist, the hand still resting on the door. He gave no sign that he had felt anything.

"This silent treatment won't work," he told my body. "I've forgiven what you did to Selene. The least you can do is stop dragging our daughter into it."

I had heard that accusation while I was alive. Even now, with Elsie trying to settle against my cold legs, he was waiting for me to defend myself.

"Look at me," I begged. "Just come close enough to look."

He rubbed his forehead.

"Think about what you're teaching her."

Then he pulled the door shut. The latch clicked; he didn't lock it. His footsteps went down the hall to his study, and Elsie lay back down on the rug.

Before Selene came back, Dorian used to come home quietly so he wouldn't wake us. If he found Elsie asleep against me, he would carry her to her bed. I used to complain that he woke her by kissing her too many times on the way.

I waited for those footsteps to turn around.

They didn't.

Elsie tucked her knees closer to my body. I stayed with her until daylight, watching the door he had chosen to close.

At eight, Dorian left his study and went to the kitchen.

The counters were empty. No coffee, no covered plate beside his usual seat. As Luna, I had helped prepare the pack's breakfast before dealing with the day's other work. Whatever else had gone wrong between us, he still expected to find his meal waiting.

He opened a cabinet, shut it, and called my name.

Elsie appeared in the doorway.

There were black smears on her nightgown where she had slept against me. Her hair was tangled at the back, and she stood with one foot on top of the other against the cold floor.

"What's on your clothes?" Dorian asked.

"I'm hungry, Daddy."

He glanced from the marks to the paints she and I had left on the living room table the afternoon before.

"Your mother let you go to bed covered in paint?"

Elsie looked down at herself. She touched a smear with one finger, then held it out to him.

"From Mommy."

"Of course it is."

He checked his watch and took her wrist.

"Where is she?"

"Still sleeping."

"Mara, get up. Elsie hasn't eaten, and she'll be late for training."

He said it as though the empty kitchen, the dirty nightgown, and the hungry child were problems only I could solve. He was standing beside the refrigerator. Elsie had already told him she was hungry.

He left it closed.

Instead, he headed down the hall, irritation quickening his steps. Morning light now reached the bedroom floor. This time, there would be no darkness to hide what he'd find.

His phone rang on the dining table.

He stopped with his hand near our door, then turned back.

Selene's name lit the screen.

"Dorian, Ivy has a fever. I don't know what to do. Can you come?"

His hand tightened around the phone. "How high? Is she awake?"

I remembered holding Elsie through a fever of a hundred and four, waiting for him to finish a meeting. He hadn't asked me either of those questions.

"Stay with her," he told Selene. "I'm coming."

Elsie followed him as far as the entryway. He pulled on his shoes, then noticed her standing there.

"Mara! Get Elsie dressed. I'm taking Ivy to the clinic."

"Daddy?"

He looked past her toward the hall.

"Enough. You can't neglect your own daughter every time Selene needs something."

He went out and shut the front door behind him.

Elsie kept looking at it. Then she turned and went back to our bedroom, her hand trailing along the wall.

No one had given her breakfast.

She found my phone on the rug and pressed the side button.

The screen stayed black. She pressed harder, using both thumbs, then carried it to my body.

"Mommy, open it again. I want Aunt Maeve."

The battery had died during the night. Elsie knew how to make a call once the screen was open. She didn't know what to do with a phone that wouldn't light up.

She put it beside my hand and waited.

"Please? I'm hungry."

I knelt so close that, if I'd still had a body, I could have kissed her forehead. She looked straight through me.

After a while, she took my hand in both of hers.

"You're cold."

She rubbed my fingers the way I always rubbed hers when she came in from playing outside. When they didn't warm, she got up and went to the closet. The low shelf held sweaters and jackets. She tugged one free, dropped it, picked it up again, and dragged it across the floor.

"This one's warm, Mommy."

She spread it over my chest. It slipped, so she fetched another and tucked it awkwardly beneath my chin.

"See? I helped."

She pushed against my shoulder, trying to get the sleeve underneath. My weight shifted. My body slid sideways from its seated position and came to rest on the floor against the bed, one arm caught beneath it.

Elsie stumbled back.

For a few seconds, she didn't make a sound. Then she began to cry, staring at the place where my head had fallen.

"Mommy, get up. Don't do that."

I tried to put myself between her and the sight. She walked through me to pull at the jacket.

"I'll fix it. I'll fix it, Mommy."

She couldn't lift my shoulder. At last she sat down beside me and held the hand she could reach.

"Grandma said dead means you can't move anymore."

She waited, studying my face.

"Are you dead?"

I wanted to tell her the truth without leaving her alone in it. I wanted another adult in that room, someone who could gather her up before she had to ask again.

"I'm so sorry, baby."

She didn't hear. She laid her cheek against the back of my hand and closed her eyes.

The front door banged open.

Dorian came in still holding his phone.

"Mara, her trainer called. Why isn't Elsie at training? And why aren't you answering me?"

Elsie scrambled up. She left the jackets where they were and ran to the doorway.

"Daddy—"

"I went to check on a sick child. And this is how you punish me?"

He caught her hand and headed down the hall. She had to hurry to keep up with him.

This time, he reached the bedroom door. Elsie pointed through the narrow opening toward the floor.

"Mommy's in there."

His palm flattened against the wood.