The Gray Matron walked away from the man to light the hall’s fixtures. She held her candle to the lanterns on either side of the door, chasing the eerie gloom from the room as their oil-soaked rags caught fire. While the lanterns filled the foyer with light, Nox remained concealed. The woman returned to the basket, her face betraying a complex array of emotions. Wary curiosity bubbled to the forefront as she stared down at whatever had been smuggled into the manor.

The Gray Matron’s fingers stayed against her mouth, stifling her sharp inhalation. She looked up at the man’s degenerate grin. Nox’s eyes flitted between them before fixating on the strange way the man’s eyes and mouth failed to match as he smiled. The pair kept their voices low as they spoke, tones hushed with secrecy.

Nox scrunched her face in whatever unnamed frustration burbled within her. She hated that she couldn’t hear. She wanted them to share what they’d found. She needed the tether that wrapped itself fully within her chest and pulled her toward the basket to relax its taut hold.

“Well, that does change things.” The matron’s words seemed painted with disbelief.

“What did I tell you?” the stranger asked.

She didn’t look away from the bundle.

The man pushed on. “It’s just past its first birthday. It won’t be needing a wet nurse. Anything in the kitchen can be mushed up right fine. It’s already made it through the hardest time. I’ve been traveling with it for nearly two weeks and had no trouble keeping it alive.”

“Two weeks?” The matron’s brows collected in the middle as calculations flitted behind her eyes. “Where did you find it? Why did you bring it here?”

“You know me,” he said with too much familiarity. “I owed you one. You deserved first bid at the treasure.”

Nox heard their words but couldn’t fully understand their meaning.

The matron’s face creased as her mind moved. She seemed to experience conflicting emotions that gathered in the twist of her mouth, the wrinkle of her forehead, and the parallel lines between her brows. She stared for a while longer before asking, “How much do you want for it?”

“Fifty crowns.”

She made a sound between a cough and a laugh that shocked Nox from her pose in the stillness of the quiet manor. She jolted upright in a startle, but the shadows clung to her, keeping her safe from detection. The matron’s bark mixed with the sounds of the storm outside. The shadows from the lanterns made her face look like an animal as she prolonged her disbelieving gape.