Morning arrived with a thin, silver light that seeped through the curtains and touched the room without warmth. Ren was already awake. He lay on his side, one hand resting lightly over Fang's waist, the other tucked beneath his own pillow, eyes open and fixed on the ceiling as though he had spent the night reading patterns in the shadows.
Fang stirred before the house fully settled into its waking rhythm. He did not sit up at once. Instead, he breathed in the familiar scent of the room, of clean linen, old paper, and Ren's skin, and let the shape of the night's tension return to him in manageable pieces. The hidden chamber. The creature climbing through the conduits. The pulse beneath the root lines that had refused to remain dormant.
He turned his head and found Ren watching him.
"You were awake already," Fang murmured.
Ren's gaze was quiet, but there was a sharpened edge under it. "I was deciding how much of today to ruin by being sensible."
