Winter came quietly, like a blanket pulled over the roof of the world. The air thickened. The windows iced. The wood of the orphanage groaned beneath the weight of snow, but no one said the word aloud. It was already here. We didn't need to name it.
The garden disappeared beneath white. It no longer looked like a place where people had once run or climbed or fallen. It looked like it had always been still.
We stopped going outside. The older boys didn't argue or beg. They knew. Their boots were wet, their socks never dried. The cold reached through sleeves and wrapped around throats. Frost crept into the cracks of windows, sketching feathers across the glass.
Even the cat stopped coming.
It had been coming less since the rains began, but now it vanished completely. I didn't blame it. The fence was buried. The stone it used to sit on had a layer of snow thick enough to hide its shape. I imagined it curled beneath a house somewhere, near a bakery chimney or under someone's barn, sleeping through the wind.
But some nights, after I put Evelune to sleep and the house fell into the hush that only winter knows, I sat by the narrow window above our bed and looked out. The light from the corridor didn't reach that far. It was always dim, cold enough to turn my breath visible. I would sit with my knees pulled up, blanket over my shoulders, and rest my forehead against the glass.
And sometimes… I saw them. Two eyes in the dark. Green and gold. Far across the snow, just past the outline of the fence. Not moving. Not glowing like fireflies—glowing like patience. Like something that had not forgotten me.
Sometimes they blinked. Sometimes they stayed perfectly still, until the frost blurred the window and I grew too sleepy to keep watching. I didn't tell anyone. I never did.
Inside, the world changed. The air dried out. Our lips cracked. Evelune's skin reddened at the cheeks and elbows, and I rubbed ointment onto it from the old tin Sister Alira left in the nursery drawer. She didn't say anything when it went missing. Maybe she didn't notice. Or maybe she didn't want to ask.
The days blurred. Morning light was thin, pale as milk. Evening came fast and pressed itself against the walls like a stranger trying to come inside. Time stopped being hours and started being sounds: the clatter of bowls, the shuffle of feet, the snap of firewood, the snore of someone too tired to dream.
Evelune grew quieter, though I hadn't thought that possible. She slept longer. When she was awake, she blinked slowly and pressed her face against my chest, as if trying to become part of my ribs. She ate less but never refused food. She let me move her arms and change her without resistance.
She didn't grow heavy. But she grew real. More real than the others. More real than I had ever been to them.
Today, a boy was adopted. It began with whispers. They moved through the hallway like smoke.
"Someone's here.""A man in nice boots.""Looking for a grandson."
The hallway was swept. The boys were combed. The Matron polished her shoes and unwrapped her black shawl—not the red one with the gold trim, the one she only wore when true nobility came. I'd only seen that once, when a Count came for a replacement son. That boy left with a new name. No one mentioned the one he'd been born with.
Today's visitor wasn't a Count. But still important enough to make the Matron pull herself straighter and purse her lips like she had secrets to keep.
He was a tall man. Broad-shouldered, with a limp in his right leg and hands that looked like they had broken a hundred things in a hundred battles. He wore no sword, but he didn't need one. The way he looked at the children said he remembered everything he'd ever fought.
A retired knight, someone whispered. Looking for a grandson.
The boys were lined up in the corridor, shoulder to shoulder, collars pulled high, faces scrubbed raw. They stood like statues, as if they could will themselves into looking worthy. He passed them slowly. Paused in front of some. Asked questions I couldn't hear. Touched one on the head, briefly, as if testing for something.
Then he stopped in front of the boy who hit me with a rock.
It had been a long time ago. Last summer. The boy had been throwing rocks by the well, showing off, not watching where they bounced. One hit me—just above the temple. It split the skin. I didn't cry. But I remember the way he ran to me, panicked, tears already forming. He said sorry again and again. He bent to pick up the rock, and I gave it back to him.
That was all. No one else remembered. But I did. And maybe he did too.
The knight spoke to him. The boy answered, quietly. Then nodded. That was it. He was chosen.
He didn't celebrate. He didn't smile. His hands trembled as he followed the old man to the Matron's office. A bag was exchanged. Not gold. Likely silver, maybe a family ring tucked inside. The boy didn't look back.
He passed me in the hall, eyes wide like he was seeing the walls for the first time. He didn't speak. But I saw the flicker of guilt in his face. The memory of a rock and forgiveness, wrapped in silence. I nodded once. That was enough.
The other children went quiet after that. Adoption always did that. It made hope bloom too fast in some. Made bitterness rot quietly in others. Everyone pretended they weren't watching the door now. But they were. They always were.
I returned to my place under the stairs. Evelune was there, wrapped in our blanket. She had stayed asleep the whole time, untouched by the stir around her. I picked her up and sat beside her, holding her to my chest, and rocked her slowly. Her fingers curled into the wool. I pressed my cheek to her soft hair and listened to her breathe.
Someone had left. Someone had been chosen. But not us. Not this time. That night, the snow thickened. The frost on the window grew deeper, outlining the panes in sharp veins. I sat there anyway, knees to my chest, blanket around my shoulders.
Outside, the world was white. Still. Untouched. And in the distance, at the edge of the fence— Two eyes. Green. Gold. Watching. The cat hadn't left. He had simply stepped back until the noise faded. Until the world quieted again. Like me.