Her father packs up the cart as the day gives way to dusk. They will stay the night in a local inn, and for the first time in her life, Adeline will sleep in a foreign bed, and wake to foreign sounds and smells, and there will be a moment, as brief as a yawn, when she won't know where she is, and her heart will quicken - first with fear, and then with something else. Something she does not have the words for yet. And by the time they return home to Villon, she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.🏁

Her father packs up the cart as the day gives way to dusk. They will stay the night in a local inn, and for the first time in her life, Adeline will sleep in a foreign bed, and wake to foreign sounds and smells, and there will be a moment, as brief as a yawn, when she won't know where she is, and her heart will quicken - first with fear, and then with something else. Something she does not have the words for yet. And by the time they return home to Villon, she will already be a different version of herself. A room with the windows all thrown wide, eager to let in the fresh air, the sunlight, the spring.🏁