Nothing else came.
Aria sat at the kitchen table with the key in her fist and waited for the rest of it. The garden. Her mother's face. Anything.
The stove ticked. Rain ran down the window over the sink.
She pushed at the memory the way you press a bruise to find where it ends. Pain flared behind her right eye, sudden and sharp, and she sucked in a breath.
Damien's hand closed over hers.
"Stop."
"I almost had it."
"You had a headache." He didn't let go. "You've slept four hours in two days. It'll still be there in the morning."
"We have forty-five hours."
"Then you can spend seven of them asleep."
She opened her mouth to argue and yawned instead.
Damien closed the box and tucked it under his arm. Aria kept the key. She fell asleep in the short iron bed with it still in her hand, and when she woke at dawn, it was warm.
***
Ken came back at seven with four paper bags from the village bakery.
He stopped in the kitchen doorway. Fourteen children stopped chewing.
