The rain hadn't let up by the time Penelope gave up pretending to read.
She'd taken the same book off the shelf three times now, opened it to the same dog-eared page, and gotten no further than the first paragraph before her eyes drifted, inevitably, back toward the window — toward the storm, toward the dark, toward every road Killian might currently be walking down that she had no way of seeing into.
He'd said it wouldn't take long.
That had been hours ago.
"You're doing the thing again," Kai said from across the room, not looking up from where he sat cross-legged on the floor, methodically sharpening the edge of his axe against a whetstone.
"What thing."
"The staring-at-the-window-like-it-owes-you-money thing."
"I'm reading."
"You're holding a book. Those aren't the same activity." Kai glanced up, something gentler than his usual teasing underneath the words. "He'll be back."
"I know that."
