Ezra didn't sleep at all that second night, and by the gray hour before dawn, he had arrived at a decision with the particular, terrible clarity of a man who has finally stopped arguing with himself and simply accepted what the argument had been circling toward all along.

He watched Lucien sleep for a long time, memorizing the shape of him in the dim light — the slight furrow between his brows even in rest, the particular way he curled one hand loosely against the pillow, details Ezra had catalogued a hundred times before and found himself desperate to catalogue once more, as though sheer repetition might make them permanent...