He didn't call for me right away.
That was the first sign of how broken he was.
Normally Marlow's voice carried through the entire press like a church bell—sharp, commanding, cracked around the edges but refusing to admit it. Orders barked, questions demanded, insults delivered with such casual cruelty that the apprentices had learned to take them like blessings, as if they were coins tossed by a stingy god.
But not now.
Now the room had fallen into a hush that wasn't respectful so much as anticipatory, like the silence in a wake before the priest starts mumbling lies about the departed.
I was still holding Thalia. Her sobs had quieted, not because she was any less devastated but because she had used up all the noise she had to give. Her breathing was ragged, raw, wet. My shirt was damp with her tears, clinging cold against my skin.
Neither of us spoke.
