Matt didn't sleep. He couldn't.
He sat in the darkness of his room, the dead modulator on the table beside him, his father's words circling through his mind like wolves around a wounded elk.
The pureblood princess is what. There was an information but no information still.
He didn't understand what it meant. Wants to understand. The phrase felt heavy, weighted with implications he wasn't ready to examine.
Outside, the sky shifted from black to grey to the pale gold of early morning. The castle stirred around him—servants lighting fires, guards changing shifts, the slow awakening of the Nightbourne's heart.
Matt stood and walked to the window. Leaning on the wall for balance. The modulator had drained him.
Stanley's car was already waiting in the courtyard below. The scientist stood beside it, his suitcase in hand, his rumpled suit looking even more disheveled in the morning light. He was talking to one of the guards, gesturing animatedly about something Matt couldn't hear.
