EMBER’S POV
Something flickers across Hale’s face. It comes too fast, and its gone before I can name it, smoothed over with that bright, blinking pleasantness, like a stone dropping into water and the surface going still again right after.
“Your wife,” she says, and gives a little laugh, high and quick. “Well. Isn’t that something. Isn’t that just— something.” She clasps her hands under her chin. “She’s so small, Knox. Look at her little face. Where did you find her?”
I open my mouth, but Knox gets there first, and his voice has cooled a few degrees.
“Ember, this is Hale. My cousin, on my father’s side.” He says it the way you’d hand someone a fact to hold. “Her branch of the family lived here when we were children, before they travelled out east. She came back years ago. She’s helped
