Within a few minutes, she’s asleep again, sweaty and peaceful. I doubt I’ll get back to sleep that easily. I scratch my face and walk back to bed, careful not to squeak the floorboard outside Charlie’s room as I pass.

An impulse makes me pause. I turn back, silently open his door, and peek inside far enough to see his arm dangling off the side of his bed, his mouth parted, drawing even breaths over his Spider-Man pillow.

He’s here. He’s fine. Of course he is.

I want to pick up that arm, protect it from being bitten off by the monsters under his bed. I leave him be.

I slip into bed beside Hugh and drift off, realizing just before I go under that he’s back from wherever he went in the first place.

It’s weird for me to sleep more than Hugh. I’ve been extra alert all my life. I guess it’s insomnia, but that feels like the wrong word. What do you call it when you never picked up the knack for resting in the first place?

Gran, who used to stay up with me in the night, called it fairy blood. My mother called it the demon in me. She blamed that demon for all sorts of things. Car accidents. Drownings. All my fault.

I used to watch Hugh when he slept, marveling at how quickly he could put his day away, setting all his thoughts on his bedside table and picking them up in the morning like his mind was a worker clocking in and out. If there were a course in compartmentalization, he could teach it, and I would take it.

When I wake up again, Hugh’s lying on his back, facing the dawn-lit ceiling, eyes open and unblinking, his lips pressed into a white line.

“Morning,” I murmur.

He blinks but doesn’t answer. I slide out of bed with a sigh, reaching for my hairbrush.

I like to stare out the window at the sea first thing, stretch and breathe and brush my hair before duties call. Usually Hugh yawns musically and starts a conversation—about the day ahead, the idea he’s mulling for the grounds or the village or the cottages on Sunnan, what we should have for dinner, whether Charlie’s reading is coming on quickly enough.

This morning, he dresses quickly and leaves the room without a word.