Wren
Three days after the greenhouse, the mansion finally emptied out.
Darius rode south with his warriors. Mira went home with a notebook full of wedding schemes. Berta, exhausted from feeding a valley, was bullied by all four of us into visiting her sister for a week, and left only after preparing enough food for a month and writing Lucien a list titled INSTRUCTIONS that ran to three pages.
And for the first time since the war ended, since the proposal, since everything, the house held just the four of us.
It was Zephyr who declared it, at breakfast, in his order-giving voice: “Tonight. Dinner. The four of us, no maps, no lists, no wedding talk, no one else in this house.” Then he ruined the command completely by adding, quieter, not looking up from his hot chocolate, “We’ve never on
