ELLA POV
The hand stayed on the window frame long enough for my brain to offer several deeply unhelpful possibilities before a face finally appeared behind it.
Female.
Not Frederic.
The relief and disappointment hit so close together that I immediately hated both of them.
Something was definitely wrong with me.
She looked young, maybe early twenties, with dark hair tied back in a knot that had mostly given up, dirt along one cheek and a healing cut near her temple. There was nothing polished about her. She looked tired in the kind of way that came from sleeping badly for days rather than one rough night, and there was something in her eyes I didn’t like because I recognized it too easily.
The look of someone who had already decided things could go wrong and had come anyway.
She lif
