Shadewood We are in the war.

Riley didn’t catch he’d stirred her from a nightmare — but he did catch he’d woken her from sleep. Tiredness clung to the corner of her eyes, and he could sense rather than say with specificity that her body was on the cusp of exhaustion. 

He felt guilty for waking her - for imposing on what should have been rest. All boys would be nice too. As a bird trilled loudly outside, Riley reined in his thoughts about tiny children and focused on the present. 

The grumble of her stomach had Riley carefully extricating himself from her limbs. She hardly finished saying she was hungry before he was peering outside of the den, measuring the early morning weather. What would you like?

A certain disquiet had crept into Riley. He worried for Masque — and that worry conveyed into being at her beck and call far more urgently than usual.