Respite. That’s what June had said. I did my own examination of Niall Rennington and deduced precisely what my cousin needed. It was not rest. Nor to be coddled nor hugged nor comforted. No. Niall needed to act. To howl. To tear apart the menace that refused to stop its own vicious tearing.

A wildling, my Niall was. And we wildlings were meant to prowl.

Episode 85: A Terrifying Sight In The Rennington Stables

I insisted on bathing Vagabond myself. He had not been treated how I would have done so. Whoever purchased him from the Towers did not love him like I did. He was unnaturally still as I examined his shoes and legs. How tired he must have been. How alone.

But he was mine while he was gone and he was mine then, though the Renningtons were to be convinced he belonged to their new governess.

“Niall was kind enough to show me the kitchen, Aurelie, and I have brought back a good deal of food for you.” She hoisted the basket that was on her arm and set it down on a bale of hay. “Come and eat before the wind takes you.” She shrugged off her dark overcoat. “Though there is hardly any wind in the North, I suppose, is there? It is quite oppressive here. The humidity sits on one’s skin in a most unpleasant manner.”

June sat quietly while I tore through the food, and for this I was grateful, for I did prefer the quiet, even among the company of someone I held dear.

Her gaze grew far away, and her pointed chin rested on her bony knuckles as she stared at some memory. “I think about him all the time,” she murmured. “The little pyre boy.” She let the quiet overtake us once more, the dark creeping through the corners of the stables as the sun bowed its head. “I think about how he dangled there, his feet swaying just so, and how still he seemed despite the fear he must have felt.” She sighed, picking horse hair off her skirts. “I used to think about academics, you know. Languages and facts. Philosophies and histories. But now, when my mind drifts, it is only to that little boy who hung there. And his little feet. And how you had the good sense to take me along on your grand adventure so that now my thoughts drift in entirely different directions than before I met you.” She chuckled. “Not a thought I’d have given to pyres before you, Aurelie. And now they fill my whole mind with concern and wonder.”

With good food in my belly and my horse nudging me for his nighttime kisses, the glimmer of the moon on the waxy forest leaves caught my eye.

“Go,” June said. “I will tell them you are sleeping and are not to be disturbed.”