It’s a quiet night. They’re the st ones awake, as far as Wolf tell. The house is quiet below them, save for the occasional yawning creak of old wood settling. The slivered moon casts off weak light, and everything below looks like a smudge of a shadow. Leaves rustle on branches in a hushed sea of their own design.

  The house is warm at her back, but the salted air blows cold in her face. She smell the o even this far into the woods. They’re living out the st days of a dying autumn. Winter will be here soon, and with it, the snow.

  “What’s that look on your face?” Lune asks, appearing silently and suddenly, as she’s wont to do.

  She es up behind Wolf, a warm, solid presence against her back. Wolf leans into it, humming lightly as Lune’s arms circle around her. Lune’s sweater is scratchy against her back, mb’s wool tig across her shoulder bdes.

  Wolf shakes her head. “Nothing. Remembering.”

  Winter hasn’t always been kind to her.

  “You’re making the bedroom cold.”

  “Sorry,” Wolf says, but she makes no move to get down off her per the open window.

  Lune shrugs. “It’s not your fault,” she says after a while. “None of it was ever your fault.”

  Wolf looks up at her with shuttered eyes. She really, truly wishes she could believe that.

  She untucks her feet from under her and unfolds her legs, getting down from the windowsill. She closes the window and does up the tch, and Lus her go, lets Wolf slip minnow-slick out of her arms.

  Wolf folds herself into bed and pulls the covers up around her ears. The bs are puffy and altogether too warm. They smell like they need a wash. They smell like home.

  Her heart sounds too loud, and not even Lune soothe it tonight.