The thunder hit without warning — a single, violent crack that rattled the windows behind their blackout curtains and sent Aurora shrieking awake in her cradle before anyone had time to react.
"Whoa—" Kai was already moving, but Aunt Mary got there first, scooping Aurora up against her shoulder, murmuring low and steady while the baby's cries climbed and broke and climbed again.
"That's new," Ben said, glancing up from the knife and whetstone he'd been working through by lamplight, an activity that had become something close to meditation for him over the last two days.
Another crack followed, closer this time, and beneath it — faint at first, then rapidly, unmistakably louder — the sound of rain beginning to hammer against the building's exterior.
