Chapter 23: Callum and the Wolf, Uncontained

The knock came at six forty-three.

Callum knew it was not Sable. He had learned the weight of Sable's knock in the past week without meaning to — the way he had learned, apparently, everything about the people in this flat without meaning to, without knowing he had done it before. Sable's knock was precise. Two beats, even interval, the knock of someone who has decided to commit to an action and follows through without hesitation or apology.

This knock was slower. Patient in a way that was not quite human. The kind of patience that has nothing to prove.