Their morning walks had continued whenever Leon’s work permitted, and tea had followed often enough that neither of them seemed to require an invitation anymore.

Then Leon’s rut began, and for five days he remained in his own rooms.

He had instructed the servants to tell René that he was indisposed. At the time, that had seemed sufficient. Only when he returned to the drawing room and René asked whether he was well enough to receive company again did Leon begin to wonder what those five days had looked like from the other end of the house.

René lowered his book. “So, you have been ill?”

“No. Not precisely.” Leon took the chair beside him and immediately wished he had remained standing. “My… my rut began.”

“Oh.”

René’s finger remained between the pages. For a moment, he said nothing, and Leon found himself wishing he had thought to explain matters before now.

“I am sorry,” he continued. “I had not meant to stop coming without an explanation. I assumed someone would have told you.”

“They said you were indisposed and did not wish to be disturbed.”

Leon closed his eyes briefly. Of course they had; those had been his instructions.

“I did not mean it like that.”

René looked down at his book, rubbing his thumb along the edge of the page.

“I wondered whether I had done something,” he admitted.

Leon turned towards him. 

“No,” Leon said at once. “You did nothing wrong.”

René glanced at him, still seeming a little uncertain. “I thought perhaps you no longer wished for my company…”

The words struck Leon harder than he expected. He had missed their mornings together. 

“I did not mean to make you think that,” he said.

René’s expression softened, though some of the uncertainty remained.

“I shall explain myself better next time,” Leon promised.

René watched him for another moment before closing his book.

“Will you continue to have coffee with me?”

“Very gladly.” Leon let out a breath of relief.

René smiled and reached for his cup. It was a small thing, their afternoons together, but Leon had missed them more than he had realised.

By the following week, their usual habits had resumed. René had still not grown accustomed to the taste of coffee, so Leon took his coffee while René kept to tea. That afternoon, they remained together until Leon could no longer reasonably postpone returning to his study.

Leon walked toward the main entrance with the latest tapestry samples René had chosen for the rooms under renovation. After Leon had shown him the western wing, he could hardly allow the rooms to look monstrously deformed, so nearly every aesthetic decision had fallen to René. At first, René had been careful with his opinions, but that had not lasted long. Leon had only needed to remind him of the gray tapestry before René began rejecting fabrics, carpets, and wood samples without much hesitation.

The arrangement was considerably easier. René had opinions where Leon had grown tired of having them, and the rooms would undoubtedly look better for it.

In truth, much of their marriage had become easier with familiarity. Leon had always assumed it would. His parents had certainly made it appear so. Two people ceased being strangers, learned one another’s habits, found subjects worth discussing, and discovered what could make the other laugh. Eventually, there was someone to turn to at the end of a walk or over a cup of coffee, without requiring any particular reason for it.

It was, more or less, what Leon had expected when he agreed to marry. He was quite satisfied with it.

Leon shifted the samples beneath his arm as he crossed the hall toward the back door. Odette would already be waiting for him. They were expected in the city that afternoon, and Leon had spent longer with René than he had intended.

He was nearly at the door when movement beyond the window caught his attention. Leon stopped and looked into the yard, as something black struggled against the metal fence outside.

One of the ravens had caught itself in the metal fence. Its wings beat violently as it twisted, one foot pulled at an awkward angle against the metal. The tapestry samples slipped lower beneath Leon’s arm when he saw the uneven tail feathers.

“Oh, no…”

He set the samples on a table beside the door, then turned sharply towards the other door leading into the yard. 

His steps quickened as he headed toward the fence, but when he saw the bird struggle, he slowed down. A length of wire had wound around its foot and snagged on the fence. Its wings flapped frantically until exhaustion forced it to stop, its beak wide open as it took rapid, shallow breaths before trying to free itself again. 

The closer Leon got, the louder the croaks and clicks became. The bird began struggling again the moment Leon reached toward it. It thrashed its wings violently and twisted its body, trying again to escape, but to no avail. When it snapped its head toward Leon, its beak nearly caught his hand.

“Shh,” Leon tried to soothe it. “I know… I am sorry. I am frightening, I know…”

But the bird kept trying to catch him, flapping its wings and clicking at him. Its beak caught Leon’s hand at one point, scratching it. Overwhelmed, Leon took off his waistcoat and, with a swift movement, managed to drape it over the raven’s head and body.

The cries stopped, and for a moment, the bird stopped struggling as violently as before. Leon took the chance. He placed one palm over the raven’s back and held it steady while, with the other hand, he carefully untangled the wire that had caught on the fence.

Once the wire came free of the fence, Leon worked the rest of it loose from the raven’s foot. As soon as it was free, he lifted the bird away and placed it on the grass. He slowly pulled his waistcoat away, freeing it.

The raven stumbled for a second, but soon launched itself into the air with heavy wingbeats, leaving Leon behind.

He looked at his waistcoat, dirty with earth, droppings, and feathers, and sighed, but soon a chuckle escaped him as he stood. He collected the samples on his way inside to change. Asking Ms. Veller for a change of clothes caused another commotion Leon had already braced himself for. She took the waistcoat from him.

“Oh, Mr. Meren,” Ms. Veller fretted. “Your poor waistcoat. Why did you touch it? You should have called someone! What happened?” She looked more closely at his shirt, and her voice tightened. “Mr. Meren, you are bleeding! I will call the physician!”

Leon looked down at himself, and indeed, while he had held the waistcoat and the samples against himself, blood from his hand had smeared across his shirt.

“Ms. Veller, it’s all right.” Leon smiled. “It is just a nick. Nothing to make a fuss about.”

She insisted again, but Leon simply washed his hands and changed his clothes as quickly as possible. When he finally got outside, the carriage was waiting, and Odette was pacing beside it, glancing at her pocket watch.

She shot Leon a severe look but held her tongue, which was often how things went between the two when Leon had kept her waiting. But her expression softened when she saw Leon’s hand.

“Sir, what… What happened?” Odette asked, her concern growing.

“Bird…” Leon managed with a sigh.

Their business in the city took longer than Leon had expected. By the time they left the last appointment, the streets had grown considerably busier.

Leon was walking towards his carriage, adjusting the cuff over the scratches on his hand. He was passing a narrow shop between the tailor and the bookseller when something in the window caught the light.

Among painted boxes, cheap glass cups, and small ornaments stood a little bird made of amber glass. It had a round body, darker along the back and tail, with its small beak pointed slightly upward. The sunlight passed through the amber and caught several tiny bubbles trapped inside the glass.

Looking more closely, it was not particularly fine. One side of the bird seemed slightly fuller than the other, and the shape of its wings had been suggested by little more than two shallow lines in the glass. There were certainly finer ornaments in Langrer, and Leon doubted anyone in his family would have given this one a second glance.

The glass bird caught the sun again. He wondered whether René would know what sort of bird it was meant to be. Leon certainly did not. Perhaps it was not meant to be any particular kind at all. It did not matter. René would like it.

“Sir?” Odette called from farther ahead.

Leon glanced toward her. Odette had already reached the carriage and was waiting beside it.

“One moment.”

The shop was not one Leon would ordinarily have entered. There was nothing in the window that appeared particularly valuable, and the little bird itself was hardly remarkable. But Leon had already imagined it somewhere among René’s stones, bits of glass, and the other strange things the ravens had begun leaving for him.

He opened the door. Leon pointed out the bird to the shopkeeper and paid what was asked for it. The purchase took hardly any time. The shopkeeper wrapped it carefully in paper, and Leon turned the small parcel once in his hand before stepping outside. Odette looked at the parcel and then at Leon as he got into the carriage.

On their way home, he kept twisting and turning the parcel in his hands. When he closed both hands around it, it disappeared between them. He wondered whether the gift was too small and inconsequential to be worth giving at all.

By the time they arrived at the estate, it was early evening. René would most likely have retired to his rooms by then. Leon stepped out of the carriage and entered the house, the parcel still in his hand, before heading down the corridor toward the eastern wing.

But Leon had never ventured far into the eastern wing other than the drawing room since René arrived, much less approached René’s bedroom. His steps slowed, and doubt crept in. There was no occasion for the gift, nor any particular reason for him to seek him out at this hour. Standing outside René’s rooms with the tiny wrapped bird suddenly felt faintly ridiculous.

He looked down at the parcel again. It hardly warranted disturbing René or making an occasion of presenting it himself. He could simply have someone take it to him.

He had almost decided to turn back when a servant approached along the corridor and bowed in greeting.

“Would you take this to Mr. Meren?” Leon held out the parcel. “I thought he might find it interesting.”

The servant accepted it with both hands. “Of course, sir.”

“Thank you.” Leon hesitated. “Come to my sitting room afterward and let me know that he received it.”

“Yes, sir.”

Leon gave a satisfied nod and turned back the way he had come. But while waiting for the servant in his quarters, his curiosity about René’s reaction to the gift only grew. If he was to ask how René had reacted, however, that would require René to have opened it immediately. Perhaps he had set it aside for later. Perhaps the servant would have nothing to report at all.

The question distracted Leon enough that he eventually stopped reading his book altogether, and he was so lost in thought that he did not hear the first knock on the door.

“Enter,” Leon said.

“Sir.” The servant entered reluctantly. “Mr. Meren has received the gift. He thanks you, sir.”

“Good.”

The servant was about to leave, opening his mouth to bid him good evening, when Leon stopped him at the door.

“Did he say anything else?”

“No, sir,” the servant said, his eyes moving quickly over Leon’s face.

Leon hesitated for a moment, rubbing the edge of a page between his fingers while the servant waited in the doorway.

“Did he seem happy?” Leon inquired.

The servant opened his mouth, then immediately pressed his lips together, as though trying to remember. 

“I… think so, sir,” he managed. “He opened it before I had the chance to excuse myself.”

Leon’s eyes shifted from his book to the servant. “And his scent?”

“Sir…” The servant clutched at his trousers, fiddling with the fabric. “I am a Beta, sir.”

Leon stared at him for a moment before looking back at his book.

“Of course,” he murmured. “Forgive me.”

“It is quite all right, sir.”

The servant remained by the door, seemingly uncertain whether there were any further questions he ought to have prepared for. Leon rubbed his thumb along the edge of the page.

“You said he opened it immediately?”

“Yes, sir.”

Leon nodded. “Thank you. That will be all.”

The servant wished him good evening and closed the door behind him.

Leon returned his attention to his book, though several minutes passed before he began reading again.

He had not intended anything particular by the gift. The little bird had reminded him of René, and he had thought René would like it. That was all. They had grown familiar over the past weeks.

Still, Leon had not expected to care quite so much whether he had been right. He looked down at the same page he had been holding since the servant entered, then smiled and finally turned it.