I change into riding clothes, then unlock Mercedes’s door and enter.

“You could knock,” she says from where she’s sitting on her bed like a fucking queen surrounded by all four hounds. They’re lying with their heads on her lap as she holds a magazine in one hand and eats a macaron from a plate of colorful macarons at her side.

“Well, look at you,” I say as the dogs come to greet me. I pet them, taking time for each of them. I love these dogs. Have even before Theron abandoned them. I protected them from my grandfather when he would have drowned them. Theron had only brought the dogs into the house to get under his skin. But I wouldn’t give them up.

“What?” Mercedes says from her place as she selects another macaron. “You didn’t say I wasn’t allowed food. Just that I had to finish my tray.”

“And I’m sure it was you who finished it.”

She grins like the cat who swallowed the canary and shoves an entire macaron into her mouth. “These are delicious. Lois has outdone herself,” she says around her mouthful.

“You’re going to spoil your appetite for dinner.”

“I’ll be fine. I’ve been starved, remember?”

“Starved is quite the stretch.” I walk over to her, the dogs on my heels, and pick up a macaron.

“Not that one. Pistachio is my favorite. Take the vanilla. Those are boring.”

I raise my eyebrows and swallow the pistachio macaron, not missing the look she gives me. “You’re something else, you know that?”

“Thank you.”

“Most people would not take that as a compliment.”

“I’m not most people.” She grins up at me, and it’s as if the woman I left here this morning is a distant memory. She's distracting herself. The dogs. The food. The magazine. I won’t have that.

“Why are you here, Mercedes?”

Her expression falters momentarily but then her eyes narrow. “What? Can’t stand to see me happy?”

“Are you happy?”

She shrugs a shoulder.

“Why are you here?”

She wraps an arm around her middle and looks away. In her profile, I see the vulnerable girl she hides beneath her armor. The damaged one. The frightened one.

“Mercedes.” I touch her cheek and brush her hair away. “I’m not asking to hurt you.”

She looks down at her lap, and Pestilence jumps up onto the bed as if sensing this shift. He whines and lays his head in her hands. I wouldn’t normally allow them on the bed, but I think she needs this. She pets him, leans down to kiss the top of his head, then straightens back up.

“I’m dangerous,” she says, swiping the back of her hand across her face.

I remain silent, watching her. Waiting.