The attic was a long, low tunnel of beams and dust sheets, and it was freezing.
Aria ducked under one rafter, nearly brained herself on the next, and followed the draft to the far end. A dormer window stood propped open with a broken chair leg. Rain blew in across the floorboards.
She leaned out.
Damien was on the roof.
He knelt on the slate beside the chimney stack, one knee braced in the gutter, twenty feet from the window. His t-shirt was soaked through and stuck to his back. Beside him sat a hammer, a coil of wire, and a neat stack of grey slates.
Past the gutter there was nothing. Just air, and the gravel drive a long way down.
"Damien."
He didn't look up. He fitted a slate into a gap, tapped it twice, and reached for the next one. "Go back inside. It's cold."
"I'm cold? You're on a roof!"
"I noticed."
"In the rain!"
"It's mostly stopped."
It had not mostly stopped. A gust threw water across Aria's face. She wiped it off with her sleeve and gripped the window frame.
