He glanced sideways, meeting Lianne's eyes.  "Do you have anything you need to get before we leave?"

"Actually," Alan said, face going tight again, "She's not coming."

"What, are you joking?" Jasson asked.

At nearly the same instant, Liam protested, "Of course she's coming!"

Alan held his hands up before him, defensive.  "I tried.  You're welcome to have a go, but she's dead-set.  Apparently, Lianne," his tone changed and he went on as if reciting a passage, "Will be safest here, where she can keep an eye on her and make sure no one knows where she's gone."  Voice returning to its normal state, though perhaps laced with more sarcasm than was totally necessary, he added.  "Because of course we're completely incapable."

Liam, who out of habit generally didn't swear in front of either of his sisters, expressed his opinion with a few very colorful, quite vulgar words.  On Lianne's other side, Jasson nodded his agreement.

"Yes, well, you're more than welcome to try and talk her around," Alan said.

"Maybe she'll listen to one of us," Liam offered.

Lianne, once she was entirely certain the stinging in her eyes was under control and she would not lose her composure, shook her head slightly and cleared her throat.  She supposed she had been a little naïve to automatically expect Aly would allow them to stay.  "She won't.  It took me three days to even find out where we were going.  Maybe you should just go."

"Where, home?" Alan's expression shifted quickly from shock to disbelief and then finally to one of mild reproach.  "She's not that convincing.  We're staying in the city."

"Yeah, don't be stupid." Jasson added.

Despite the glares shot his way by both Liam and Alan, Lianne, after a brief, slightly stunned pause, laughed.  It was a slightly uneven laugh, and a weary one, but one that made the heavy weight on her chest and shoulders seem somehow less.   "You have no manners at all," she told him, reaching up to muss his hair only because she knew he would find it patronizing and be incredibly irritated.

He dodged, nearly slipping from his seat in the process, and looked innocent.  "You missed me most.  Admit it."

"Here." Aly had come up beside Alan silently, and handed him a cloth bag with little ceremony.  "All set?"

"In a minute," he said, pulling back the flap and looking inside.  "Tomorrow – you'll remember?"

Aly didn't make much of an effort to conceal her impatience.  "I'll remember.  Look –"

"We're leaving," Liam assured her with a frown.  He stood, somewhat stiffly, and though Lianne could no longer see his face, Aly's reaction was enough to lead her to suspect he wasn't trying too hard to conceal his disapproval.

Aly, face going so utterly devoid of expression that Lianne suspected she was internally furious, shoved her hands into her pockets and blinked at him.  "I'll keep an eye open for ships that might take you all." She said.  "You wouldn't mind maybe having to split up, would you?"

"Yes," Liam said shortly.  "We would."

"Well, then, it'll take longer," Aly said, voice idle.  She was, Lianne was almost positive, taking a great deal of care not to look even remotely in her brother's direction, though Alan was watching her closely.

Jasson, whose patience – clearly slight to begin with – was visibly decreasing bit by bit, stood as well.  "We might be able to find one on our own."

"Maybe," Aly replied, shrugging. "Let me know if you do.  Lianne, I need to go before someone wonders where I am." She met Lianne's eyes now, something in her look implying that 'I', in this particular case, was to be interpreted more accurately as 'we'.  "Be sure to take them out here, or you'll have to explain them to another set a guards."  With a brief nod towards the wide stables doors, she made her goodbyes and left.

The pause which followed was neither brief nor particularly comfortable.  Liam and Jasson made a visible effort not to look at Alan, who was staring silently at the door through which Aly had departed.  Lianne, when she wasn't stealing glances at the three boys, watched a spot on the ground with great interest.

"This bread looks funny," Alan finally said, just as the silence was beginning to grow unbearable.  He held up the sack, finally turning away from the door to glance at Jasson pointedly and not, Lianne noticed with relief, without a faint glint of humor in his eyes. "I'm not trying it first."

"You can't make me eat that."  Jasson was so busy folding his arms irritably that he barely managed to unfold them in time to catch the sack as Alan tossed it in his direction.  "I'm not your poison taster."

"Consider it your first exercise on survival in hostile environments." Alan told him.  "Don't worry; I don't expect Aly's any good with the really fatal poisons."

Expression bordering on mutinous, Jasson reached into the bag and pulled out a chunk of bread which did, indeed, look a bit strange.  He eyed it warily for a moment, eyes lingering on the hard crust embedded with dark seeds, before taking a tentative bite.  His apprehensive frown cleared slowly, replaced with a mildly disgusted one.  "It tastes like wood."

"Be thankful," Lianne told him.  "The rest of the food here is made up almost entirely of pepper."

"Bland is fine," Liam said, reaching into the sack and helping himself to a piece.  "So long as it's food."

"I was going to eat that," Jasson said around a mouthful of bread.

Liam rolled his eyes.  "There are three of us, and that's disgusting."

"They've been like this for days," Alan sighed, speaking low enough that neither of the pair, clearly rapidly heading towards another argument, could hear.  "Do you suppose it's too far to swim home?

Lianne turned and looked at him, fighting a smile.  "I don't expect we'd ever dry out."

He nodded, apparently thinking this over.  "Well," he said after a moment, brightening.  "They aren't that heavy.  We could pitch them overboard.  Will your parents mind?"

"Doubtfully," she said. Unwilling to risk attracting the attention of either of her brothers – still debating how the food was going to be divided – she struggled to keep laughter out of her voice.  "They love me best."

Alan did not further the joke, as Lianne had expected him to.  In fact, she wasn't entirely sure he had been listening – his gaze had shifted downwards and stayed there.  "What happened to your hands?" he asked.

"Oh – I was scrubbing saddles all day," she said, holding her hands out before her and frowning at them.  "I had thought they'd stop looking so red once I stopped, but they're still sore.  And so pretty."

Unannounced, he reached for her hands, gripping them lightly in his own for a moment and then turning them over and examining her palms.  "What were you scrubbing with, thorns?"  He didn't bother looking up as he spoke, intent on his assessment of her hands.  Gingerly tracing one particularly painful blister with his thumb, he added, "Whatever you were using, you must have been holding it too hard."

"I didn't think so at the time…" she sighed.  "I'm not even sure I was doing it right.  You'd be surprised how many little places mud can get."  Even as she was saying it, Lianne was distantly aware that he probably did, but before she could amend herself, a very distracting coolness spread through her hands and into her wrists.  She looked down; dull blue fire was spreading from Alan fingertips and seeping into her skin.  Even with her palms mostly obscured, she could see the raw, swollen bits of skin on her hands slowly returning to normal.

"Make sure you aren't gripping so tightly, next time," he said, turning her hands over in his own once the fire had receded.  Critically he held them up, looking over his work.  Then, squeezing them once, he let go and met her eyes once more.

Lianne swallowed, finding something both unusual and unsettling about his gaze, and looked down; quite unsure of what she was supposed to say, though she had a nagging suspicion it was something specific, she flexed her fingers in front of her silently, looking for any traces of her previous blisters and raw skin and finding none.  "Thank you," she finally said, deciding it was the safest reply, though the feeling that it was inadequate remained.  She looked up.

"They would have felt even worse in the morning," he shrugged, expression having returned to normal quickly enough that Lianne wondered if she had perhaps imagined the change.  Voice assuming a valiant tone, he went on "Besides, I would be failing my service to the crown if I allowed blisters to mar the royal hands."

The hands in question settling on her hips, Lianne made no effort to keep from rolling her eyes, though she couldn't help a small grin as well.  "I'll make sure you get a medal."

He looked past her, comically grim.  "Get me something to eat, it'll be worth more."

Liam and Jasson, Lianne realized upon turning around to see what had Alan so dismayed, had seemingly moved on from disagreeing over food to disagreeing over one another's existence entirely, and Jasson looked about ready to use the fruits Aly had provided as weapons.  "Do me a favor," she said, coming between them and reaching for the sack before either could do any damage with it.  "Make sure to spend at least five or six hours away from each other before I see you next?"

"We're leaving," Alan said, coming up behind her.  "I'm under orders."

Liam took Lianne by the elbow, guiding her towards the smaller door the guards used as he spoke.  "I'm coming back tomorrow," he said, keeping his voice low.  "If she has anything to say about it, tell her –"

"Tell her she knows what she can do," Jasson muttered, opening the door.  Ignoring Alan's look of warning, he glanced at Lianne, touched her arm briefly, and said "I'll see you tomorrow," before stepping out.

Alan made to follow him, momentarily glancing to the ceiling as if appealing for help.  "Actually, you'll be coming to us.  Make Aly explain."  He nodded to her once, offered an encouraging smile, and stepped through the doorway as well.  Lianne could hear him casually telling the guards good evening as he went.

"Listen," Liam said, hesitating at the door and look at her seriously, one hand on each of her shoulders.  "Be careful.  Don't let anyone here talk you into anything.  I'll see you tomorrow, first thing, all right?"

Lianne nodded, though a part of her mind could not help but protest, insisting it was absolutely not all right at all.  "I'll be fine," she heard herself say.

A strange, unreadable expression on his face, Liam looked at her another minute, unblinking and serious, then hugged her tightly.  Though she found herself quite unwilling to let go, Lianne took a step back after a moment, smiling thinly.  Offering a smile that did not quite reach his eyes in return, Liam left.

It took more effort than she would have thought to bring herself to pull the door shut.  Her arm felt abnormally heavy as she reached for the handle and pulled, and when the latched clicked into place, her stomach lurched.  She turned; the stable looked just as it had before – perhaps a bit darker, but otherwise unchanged.  Yet, what only hours before Lianne had considered it the most impossibly busy area she had seen in ages, she now found cold, uncomfortably silent, and unbearably lonely.

Throat tight and her entire body feeling as if made of lead, Lianne returned to the house.