Foxglove KING
INTRODUCTION
The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers: Little we see in nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The Winds that will be howling at all hours And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not.
—William Wordsworth
No one is more patient than the dead.
—Auverrani proverb
Every month, Michal claimed he’d struck a deal with the landlord, and every month, Nicolas sent one of his sons to collect anyway. The sons must’ve drawn straws—this month’s unfortunate was Pierre, the youngest and spottiest of the bunch, and he trudged up the street of Dellaire’s Harbor
District with the air of one approaching a guillotine.
Lore could work with that. A dressing gown that had seen better days dripped off one shoulder as Lore leaned against the doorframe and watched him approach. Pierre’s eyes kept drifting to where the fabric gaped, and she kept having to bite the
inside of her cheek so she didn’t laugh. Apparently, a crosshatch of silvery scars from back-alley knife fights didn’t deter the man when presented with
bare skin.