Adrian Blackwood had turned away two hundred visitors, and the two hundred and first was climbing his gate. He watched from the tower window. A young woman scaled the iron bars, a basket hooked over one arm. Below her, his red dragon lifted its head. Most people ran when they saw the beast. She did not. She reached down and scratched its snout, and the dragon leaned into her hand like a house cat. Adrian frowned. That dragon bit strangers. It had never leaned into anyone but him. He went down to the courtyard to send her away. He had built his life on distance. Ashwood called him cold, and he let them. Cold men kept no company, and men who kept no company could not be hurt. But somewhere in that town lived one person who might see the man under the frost. He had spent years certain he would recognize her by the way she refused to flinch. "You're trespassing," he said. The woman set down her basket. "Your gate was locked. I brought bread. It seemed rude to leave it in the road." She pulled back the cloth. Inside sat warm loaves and a small black kitten, curled and blinking. "This one followed me up. I think it's yours now." Adrian did not take the basket. He crossed his arms and gave her the stare that emptied rooms. "People find me unpleasant. You should go before you agree with them." She studied his face, unhurried. The stare rolled off her. "You keep a dragon that loves you and a castle nobody enters," she said. "That's a lonely thing to guard so hard." The words landed somewhere he had walled off years ago. No one had spoken to the man beneath. They spoke to the mask and went home satisfied. He opened his mouth to deny it and found he could not. The kitten climbed out of the basket and pressed against his boot. The dragon watched them both, patient. Adrian looked at the woman, and for the first time in longer than he could count, he did not want the gate between them. "Stay," he said. The word surprised him more than her. "The bread will go cold in the road." She smiled and lifted the basket. He stepped aside and let her pass through the door he opened for no one. She walked into the dark hall as if she had always belonged there. Adrian shut the gate behind them. For the first time, someone stood inside his walls who had already seen through them. He had wanted this for years. Now she was here, and he had no idea how to let her stay without letting her learn everything he had hidden.