After rolling up the pant legs and with one hand clasped on the waistband, I returned to the kitchen to find two cups of tea waiting. We carried them upstairs, Caylus bringing a plate of scones and muffins. I swiped one as I dropped into my customary chair beside his workbench. Gio lay curled in a ball on a sweater Caylus had abandoned to the cat, and I ran my fingers along his soft fur.

Caylus retrieved the egg from the locked trunk, setting it in its stand. The familiar humming that came from it worked its way through my veins, and I drew a breath that felt like the first one I’d taken all night. Being in that ballroom, surrounded by those people—I’d felt like I couldn’t spin fast enough to protect my back.

Here, I could fall asleep to the hum of the egg and Gio’s quiet purring, while Caylus worked by lamplight late into the night.

“Why don’t you sleep in your bedroom?” I asked.

He stopped flipping through a book to look at me, green eyes slightly wide. In the yellow-orange light of the lamp, they looked hazel. He went to respond, then stopped. Looked away, then back. Finally, he said, “There’re no windows.”

When these words didn’t erase my confusion, he added, “I don’t like rooms without windows. They…” He trailed off. My gaze dropped to his hands; they’d started shaking. He clenched them into fists, and when the shaking didn’t stop, he pressed them flat on the workbench. The lamplight illuminated the jagged look of his scarred fingers.

I smoothed my right hand down my left, the skin bumpy from old burns. “When the crows were killed, I was outside the rookery. My mother came running. She told me to stay, and I did while she ran inside.”

Caylus’s eyes found mine, emboldening me. I kept talking. “The rookery was on fire. It was the middle of the night, but it was as bright as midday. I saw someone fall. I thought it was her, but it was my mother’s friend, Estrel. I didn’t think before I grabbed her. She was on fire, and the flames burned me too.”

I lifted my hand for him to see. He knew the scars were there, but I wanted him to really look at them. Under his gaze, they didn’t feel wrong. They felt like something else, like a symbol of my survival.

“For the longest time, I let these represent everything I lost, but I’m done. I won’t let my scars define me. Not anymore. From now on, they’re a symbol of what I have left to fight for. Of what I won’t let Illucia take from me.”