EMBER’S POV

“So, funny story—”

“Ember.”

“Do you want it right now, or should we save it for a moment when there isn’t an elder present to—”

Catherine makes a noise.

It begins as a wheeze.

And my very first thought is I have killed her; I have killed the only elder who ever liked me, felled by a marble penis; that’s my whole legacy; that’s what they’ll carve on my headstone — and then her narrow shoulders start to shake.

And the wheeze cracks wide open, and she turns from the window with genuine tears streaking her weathered face, laughing so hard she has to seize the windowsill to...