Chapter 15 Beneath The Cold

• The days blurred into each other. Inside the house, where Lucy lived and worked outside the safety of the Domain, the cold seeped into her bones no matter how tightly she wrapped her coat around herself. Her heater hummed in the corner—one of the many things she’d prepared in advance. She'd insulated the walls two years ago, layer after layer, sealing every crevice she could find. It was holding up well, for now.
• The rooftop greenhouse was faring better than she expected. The combination of passive heating, carefully adjusted airflow, and the old charms her grandmother had etched into the wooden beams years ago helped regulate the temperature just enough to keep things alive. It wasn’t thriving like the garden in the Domain, untouched by the apocalypse, but it was enough. Enough to grow some herbs, a few frost-hardy vegetables, and a sense of purpose.
• She harvested regularly bundles of mint, thyme, ginger, and moringa. As she worked, her thoughts often drifted toward her dreams. The two foxes. Always in snow, always hungry, and always looking at her as if they recognized something in her that even she didn’t understand.