What the Night kept

e Girl With Ink

nd beeswax candles always made

pilling over her shoulder like ink. A half-finished essay lay before her the margins covered not in words

to draw them. T

the literature instructor, "your essay on The Fall

a blinked

ass sni

ned hands under the desk. "I must've gotten distra

her voice softened. "Just

ered her books - her favorite worn leather journal, two broken quills, and an apple she ne

-

om the bones of an old monastery. The wind always howled like it remembered s

a's world

rary with too

a squeaky bed and

friends

eon who always followe

n. Still a studen

ssfully

-

oice called

my who could talk faster than she breathed. Her hair was

class again. And are you still drawin

aphina said, smiling faint

suspicious look. "You

rugged. "I ge

-

d into the chapel alone. She wasn't particularly religious - not in the way the other girls were. But she

window the one with t

idly traced

ting thinner. As if something pressed against the ed

reamed of a forest

rees li

n that

, and velvet-soft whisperi

aphin

tching her sheets, the smell of ro