Chapter 45 Flicker In The Snow

• The blizzard had eased sometime in the night, leaving a heavy, suffocating quiet in its wake. Snow clung to the windows like thick frost-tipped curtains, muting the world beyond the glass to a pale, indistinct blur. The temperature inside the house had dipped, even with the fire burning steadily in the hearth, and every breath Lucy took left a faint mist in the air.
• The house felt like a brittle bubble in a dead world. No wind, no animal cries, not even the rustle of snowdrift against the walls. Just silence. Heavy, unnatural.
• Lucy moved about the room, cradling a cup of hot tea in one hand, though she hadn’t tasted it. The steam curled around her face and vanished into the cold air. She’d kept herself busy since sundown, anything to stave off the gnawing unease that crept in during moments of stillness. The stranger—Daren—had fallen into a fevered sleep, his skin hot to the touch, his breathing shallow and uneven. The cut on his side was deep but clean, and her salves had started drawing out the angry flush around it. But infection came quickly in weather like this. The cold preserved the dead better than it spared the living.