Outside Her Door
? Roman ?
The lock turns before I make it three steps from Ivy’s door.
I stop in the corridor. The guard at the far end keeps his eyes forward and pretends not to notice.
Ivy turned that lock herself. The boundary is hers, and I won’t test it. The vow mark beneath my cuff burns warm-cold while I remember her hair between my fingers, the brush of my knuckles against her cheek, and blood on her fingertips.
I don’t regret touching her. I regret that something gentle left her bleeding.
Nora said it wasn’t only my hand. Council strain, hunger, fear, and power Ivy doesn’t understand all came first. I heard every word. Guilt still offers the simplest order: step back before I can hurt her again.
I head for the infirmary before I can mistake distance for care.
The infirmary smells like moon lilies.
That almost makes me laugh, though there’s nothing funny about the scent.
Jace’s flowers have been stripped, sorted, and laid across Nora’s worktable in neat pale piles.
Petals fill one bowl. Stems fill another.
Glass jars wait near the window, half full of spirit and crushed herbs.
White flowers from the capital. Medicine for northern wounds. Ivy did that.
Nora stands over the table with a knife in one hand and a scowl already prepared when I enter.
“If you’ve come to blame yourself, sit down,” she says. “I prefer my idiots stationary.”
“I’m not here to blame myself.”
“No? How refreshing. I’ll inform the moon.”
I stop beside the worktable. The open lily from Ivy’s room sits beneath a glass bell on the shelf, separate from the others. Its petals still lean toward the corridor I came from. Toward Ivy. My jaw tightens.
Nora follows my gaze. “Don’t glare at the flower. It’s being more honest than half this fortress.”
“Would distance help?”
Nora’s knife stills. “Maybe. Her power was pulling at her before you touched her. Distance may ease it, or it may make the bond strain harder.”
“Then I remove the factor I control.”
“You’re not a factor. You’re a person, and so is she.” Nora sets the knife down. “Ivy told you she didn’t regret the touch. If you treat her yes like a mistake, she’ll learn that wanting anything from you is dangerous.”
My hand closes at my side. She had been pale and bleeding, but she still forced the words out because she thought I needed them.
“I know what vows can become.”
“I know.” Nora wipes her hands on a cloth. “That’s why you ask instead of making fear into another rule she has to live under.”
Wanting Ivy isn’t the problem. Deciding for her because I’m frightened would be.
“What do I do?”
“Stay close enough that she knows you’re here. Ask when you don’t know. Let her rest. Tell me when the mark changes.”
“Close and careful,” I say.
“Exactly.”
Dane enters before I can decide whether I dislike the phrase.
He stops when he sees Nora’s expression and mine. “Should I come back?”
“No,” I say.
“Yes,” Nora says.
Dane looks between us. “I’ll risk him.”
“Coward,” Nora mutters.
He steps inside and hands me a folded dispatch.
“Western-pass relief team left under Alpha seal,” he says. “Small escort. No banner. Holt changed the wording exactly as Ivy marked it.”
I take the dispatch. “Any trouble at the toll point?”
“None yet.”
“Good.”
“And the audit found an older transfer using Holt’s mark. Six weeks ago. Fever wash and dried meat, both assigned to the eastern route.”
“Medicine and food.”
“Yes.”
“Who moved it?”
“Clerk access. Harrow Bell’s name sits on the shift sheet. He was a junior clerk before he began handling private freight contracts.”
I search my memory. “Junior clerk. West archive?”
“Moved to supply rotation two months ago.”
“Too quietly.”
Dane nods. I fold the dispatch once. “Don’t bring him in yet. Watch him. Find who signed off on the move and pull every eastern-route transfer tied to that office.”
“Already underway.”
“Review the patrol reports from the same weeks. Anything vague, delayed, or reassigned comes to me.”
Dane’s brows draw together. “You think someone’s weakening the post before a strike.”
“I think someone wants wounded wolves to stay wounded.”
Nora’s face hardens over the bowl of crushed petals.
Dane nods once. “I’ll keep it quiet.”
“Do that.”
His gaze shifts toward the lily beneath glass, then to Nora’s worktable.
“And Ivy?”
“She rests,” Nora says.
“Does she know that?”
“She will when I threaten her.”
Dane looks at me. “Should Holt bring the next records to her?”
“No.”
The answer comes too quickly, but it’s the right one.
“She found what we needed. That doesn’t make every Northern problem hers. Holt brings updates only when she asks.”
Nora’s eyes meet mine. For once, she doesn’t correct me. Dane inclines his head. “Understood.”
He leaves as quietly as he entered.
After Dane leaves, Nora returns to the pale petals that’ll become medicine before noon. I look once more at the lily beneath glass, its open face still turned toward Ivy’s wing.
I can fight men, the crown, and any wolf who walks through my gate carrying a blade. Staying without taking over is harder. It means leaving Ivy’s door locked without vanishing from the other side.
I’ll stay close enough that when she opens it, she won’t find I’ve mistaken caution for leaving.