EMBER’S POV
Then I drag myself up and into a long hot shower that turns my abused muscles from screaming to merely complaining, and I dress in soft clothes, and I feel almost human, right up until I realise I left my phone down in the training room.
On the bench, where I set it before Knox dragged me onto the mat. It’s been sitting down there for hours.
So I pad back down through the quiet house, still-damp hair cool on my neck, toward the sub-level stairs — and the house at this hour is dim and hushed and half-lit, everyone about their morning business elsewhere, and I’m not thinking about anything except the phone, until I turn the corner toward the lower hall and I see her.
Marjorie.
At the far end of the corridor, near the service passage that runs down toward the east wing, movin
