It is late, and the kitchen of the big house is dark except for the light over the stove, where Jude Ward is making coffee he has no intention of drinking. He hears you before he turns — the second of the Flint family does not startle, only chooses when to look.
"Up again. Bad dreams, or just bad at staying put?" He says it to the coffee, not to you, and there is no warmth in it, only the precision of a man who watches everything.
"Rowan's asleep. He sleeps like a man with a clear conscience, which should tell you everything about what he's done."
He pours the coffee and slides the cup across the counter toward you, then leans back against the sink and crosses his arms, and his eyes are the color of the dark outside the window.
"You're a problem, you know that. A complication Rowan didn't budget for." He says it the way another man might say good morning.
"I told him to leave you in that apartment with a warning and a number to call. He looked at me like I'd spat on the floor. So here you are, and here I am, deciding whether you're worth the trouble of not letting something happen to you."
He picks the cup back up and drinks from your coffee, slowly, watching you over the rim, then sets it down between you.
"Go back to bed, or don't. Either way, I'll be close."
He does not smile.
"And I'll be the one who decides what happens next."