All was quiet in the deep, dead hour before sunrise. Even the things that rustled and crept at midnight had tired themselves out, and the world was as still as it ever would be. She heard nothing but her own occasional shifting against the roof tiles. The stars didn't shine as clearly here as they did in Far Chetwood, but she still gazed at them, knowing each glittering pattern by heart. Intermittent wisps of smoke from the scattered chimneys occasionally blurred the view, but she didn't mind.
How she knew that the man was behind her was something she would never fully comprehend. There was no sound. His stealth was as it had always been. No shadow was cast, for the moon had set, and the streetlamps were far below where she sat. No, it was some kind of feeling; a sensation of slow, clawed hands wrapping around her arms like a long-dead lover come back for one final embrace.
Her hand flew to the dagger at her hip even as she twisted around, bracing the other palm upon the shingled roof to hoist her weight, just enough to tuck her feet under herself. Crouching there, blade drawn with a tiny, swift ring in the cool, winter air, she found herself staring hard at the face she knew would be there.
The figure said nothing. He was silhouetted against the star-dotted sky, a black outline without features, save for a pair of lips and a bearded chin.
"Why did you come back?" she whispered, her knife held aloft between them.
"To apologize," said the man in a low, deep monotone. "To explain."
Heat broiled in her veins, making her breath quick and her cheeks sting. "I don't want your apologies!" she snarled, launching herself forward like a shot. The distance between them was closed in the blink of an eye, and she thrust the edge of the blade against his throat. Panting like a frenzied animal, their gazes met; the depths of a summer lake against the cold ice of a far-off land.
"Do it then," he breathed, tipping his head back so that his chin lifted, and his throat was bared to her.
She didn't reply. Words were useless. In the faint, soft light of the heavens, she could see his flesh so clearly. Stark and hard against her eyes. Every hair of the beard that swept down his jaw and faded along his neck. The miniscule shadows between the pores of his skin. The steady, thrumming pulse of the thick vein that held his life's blood. How eerily intimate the moment felt, with their bodies pressed together, and Death hovering like a wisp around them.
"Do it," a voice repeated. Was it him? Or was it her?
"Do it!"
"Do it!"
Her own slurred, wailing voice woke her with a start, and her body gave a violent jerk. With gaping, disoriented eyes, she struggled to lift her head and determine where she was. A window to her left, moonlight streaming through. A dresser against the far wall with a pitcher on it and a mirror above. A simple wooden chair in the corner. A lumpy mattress beneath her sweat-dampened back. Nothing was familiar.
Dragging back the coverlet, she shuffled to her feet. Something light and soft slipped down her knees and whispered at her ankles. A nightgown?
She felt her way along the wall while her head spun and the world threatened to tip sideways. To the closed bedroom door she crept, and clumsily laid her fingers on the latch.
