Rain on the compound's roof — the specific sound of April rain, heavier than March's, lighter than May's, with the particular rhythm that meant it would last through morning and not be dramatic about it.
Sera had been awake since three. Not anxiously — just awake, the way she sometimes was, her body declining to sleep past a certain hour without explanation. She lay there for a while listening to the rain and the bond and Darius's breathing, and then got up quietly and went to the kitchen and made tea and sat at the island in the dark without turning on a light.
She didn't think about anything important. This was, she'd found, one of the skills that had arrived without her noticing — the ability to be awake at three in the morning without it becoming a rehearsal for everything she hadn't
