A few feet away, a mound of quilts rose and fell, a sort of plush tortoise shell, out of which a sleeping, bronze-tufted head emerged. The cool, purple-tinged light from the lavender windows illuminated Brella’s sleeping face, her lashes forming a perfect line of wheat stalks resting on the warm, brown sunrise of her cheek. Scratch nearly raised her hand to touch that cheek. Would it feel smooth? Warm, like the heat from a hard-boiled egg still in its shell? Soft, like a glistening, yellow-dough morning loaf? Did freckles feel different on skin? Scratch didn’t have any, nor did James, so she had no frame of reference. Were they just bits of color, or did they feel like the seeds of a strawberry—little divots of tucked-in pebbles, sleeping on top of skin stretched taut over juice?

She supposed she was rather hungry, on top of everything else. She cleared her throat.

Brella slept.

She poked a leg out from under the blankets and stamped her heel against the floor.

Brella slept.

She yawned loudly, stretching her arms over her head until her back and shoulders clicked.

Brella mumbled a bit, nestling deeper into the quilt. She snored.

Well, there was nothing for it. Scratch raised a cautious finger and poked what, in her best estimation, was Brella’s shoulder.

“Mrgh,” said the quilted thing.

“Brella. It’s morning.”

“Na.”

“Yeah. I was thinking we should eat a bit of breakfast.”

As though “breakfast” were her name, the sleeping thing raised her head. The quilt fell back and Scratch was treated to the full, undiluted Brella of morning. What ochre hair had not formed a startlingly vertical nest atop Brella’s head was plastered to her face with nighttime spittle. Her cheek bore the imprints of the pillow, a written history of a night spent in rock-solid sleep. Her eyes, usually so alert, were dazed and soft, dying firelight instead of sparks.

And, gods help her, Scratch felt her mouth go dry.

Brella was a mess. She slept like a hibernating bear, and she did it remarkably. Resplendently. As far as Scratch was concerned, Brella was the best ever at sleeping. How many people knew that this sleepy softness lurked underneath that hot, hard glare?

Scratch pressed her small skinny hand against a chest that suddenly burned.

“I’m going to go,” she whispered hoarsely. “You’ll wake up?”

Brella nodded, or perhaps just shifted in sleep. Scratch raised herself from the sheets and left, closing the door behind her. Her hands were in fists. Slowly she opened them and breathed.

Vel and James sat in the living room, having a leisurely breakfast of scones swirled with mysterious fruit alongside eggs with yolks so bright they could not possibly have come from a chicken.

“You seem livelier,” Scratch told James, pushing down the discomfort that she had meant to leave behind in the lavender room. “More upright at least.”