KNOX’S POV

I go to Hale after breakfast, which is to say after one cup of coffee and most of a second, because I put it off exactly as long as I can justify and not one minute longer.

She’s in the small sitting room she’s colonised over the years, the warm one in the east wing with her grandmother’s things crowding every shelf and the permanent smell of dried herbs hanging in the air.

She’s at the window with her tea when I fill the doorway, and her whole face opens when she sees me, warm and delighted, the way it always does.

“Knox! Up before noon two days...