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He sat near the edge with his knees drawn up, staring out at the sea. He had been there for most of the day. Through the bond, I had felt almost no movement from him.

I took my coat and went to find him.

The wind was hard off the water, and frost had settled over the grass. Kaelen must have heard me long before I reached him, but he didn't turn around.

When I was about six feet away, he said, "That's close enough, Wren."

There was no hesitation when he said my name.

I stopped where I was, then sat down on the frozen grass and pulled my coat around my knees. For a while, we simply looked out at the water.

The sun was setting behind us. The sea had darkened to a heavy violet, and far out near the horizon a small black shape moved slowly across the water, perhaps a boat.

"He'll come back," Kaelen said eventually. "You know that. This morning didn't end anything."

"I know."

"I've spent my whole life thinking the way he taught me to think." His eyes stayed on the sea. "Every choice had a cost. Every person had a value. Everything could be justified if the result kept enough people alive." His mouth tightened. "I thought if I made the right decisions often enough, I could stay ahead of him."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Then I stood at that altar and couldn't say your name."

I looked at him, but he was still facing the sea.

"I'm not doing it his way anymore," he said. "When he comes back, I need to be ready for him. I need to understand what he can't control." His hands rested loosely around his knees. "I don't know what that looks like yet."

"You'll learn."

He turned toward me then, finally. He looked pale and exhausted, the strain of the day still visible in his face, but there was something different in his gray eyes. Some of the tension that had always seemed to live there had eased, and without it he looked almost uncertain.

"Oda gave me a House," I said. "The tower. It had a name once. The Hart House."

His expression shifted. "A Hart," he said quietly. "Of course it is."

"You're free to come over whenever you feel like it."

The bond between us stayed warm and steady across the six feet of frozen grass separating us. I wanted to close that distance. I could still remember his hand on my bare hip in the Glasshouse, and the memory brought back everything else with it: his mouth on mine, the heat of him, the way my body had responded before either of us had time to think.

For one reckless second, I wanted his hand under my coat and his body over mine on the cold grass.

I stayed where I was.

He had asked for space, and now I understood what that request had cost him. I could give him that much.

"Go to your party, Wren," he said after a while. "They'll be looking for you."

"Will you come?"

"No." He drew a slow breath. "Not yet."

I stood and brushed the damp grass from my coat. For a moment I stayed there, looking at him with the dark sea beyond him and Ironmoor glowing behind me.

Then I turned toward the school.

I had almost reached the path when I heard his voice behind me, quiet enough that I might have missed it if the wind had been stronger.

"Wren."