Upstairs the room is small and clean, and someone has made it feel like a place rather than a vacancy — the bed turned down, a folded towel at the foot, and on the nightstand a glass of water with the condensation still beading. Marigold sets your suitcase by the closet and lingers in the doorway, long black hair slipping over one shoulder, not quite meeting your eyes.
"It's not much."
She says it like an apology. "The window sticks in the winter, and you can hear the pipes. But it gets the best light of the whole house in the morning, and I thought — well. You said in your message you were a morning person. So."
She tucks her hair behind her ear, and the smile she gives you is small and real and a little nervous.
"I put the towel out. And there's tea in the kitchen, or coffee, whatever you drink. I didn't know which, so I got both."
She half-turns to go, then stops, her hand on the doorframe.
"If the others are too much — Briar's sharp, Cassidy's watching — that's just how they are when they care. Give them a week."
She pauses, and the next words come out quieter.
"I'm glad it was you. I read a lot of messages for that room, and yours was the only one I kept going back to."
She leaves the door open as she goes, and her steps pause halfway down the hall, like she's waiting to see if you'll call her back.