He turned and left the study.
The corridor was dark. Cold. The sconces had burned out, and the only light came from the thin line of gray beneath Isadora's door at the far end of the hall.
He walked to it. Each step cost him something — not just the physical pain of the wound, which was considerable, but something deeper. Something in the architecture of his chest, in the scaffolding he had built around the part of himself that felt things, the part he had locked away after Isolde, the part that Isadora had somehow found and pried open with her callused fingers and her storm-blue eyes and her absolute, infuriating refusal to be afraid of him.
He reached her door.
Knocked.
"Isadora."
Nothing.
