~LYRA'S POV~
He came to find me that night.
I was in my room, sitting on the edge of the bed with the lamp burning low, doing the thing I'd been doing for most of the day since I woke up, trying to take stock of what was left of me after everything the last forty-eight hours had taken. The shift. The ball. The cellar. The blue in my hair that I still hadn't looked at directly in a mirror because I wasn't ready to see it properly yet.
Ryland knocked once and came in when I answered. He pulled the chair from the desk and set it close to the bed and sat down, and the particular way he did it, not across from me, not at a distance, just close, told me before he opened his mouth that this wasn't a routine check-in.
"There's something you need to know," he said. "I found out today and I'm not going to wait to tell you."
I looked at him. "Alright."
He didn't soften it. He just told me.
