"When, exactly, were you planning on telling me about all of this?" Cullen demanded as he strode into Finley's room.

She'd just gotten back from the road and had been rather looking forward to talking to Cullen. There had been an incident where they'd gotten to claim a trebuchet, and she was quite certain that he would fall into one of his boyish lectures on how amazing trebuchets were and how great modern siege technology really was as soon as she brought it up.

That was, she'd been looking forward to talking to him until this. She'd barely gotten out of her bath when he'd come storming in, as she'd been debating between braiding her hair or just letting it dry free. As it was, her hair was falling wildly around her, without even the usual attempts to keep it reined in.

Cullen had stopped in the middle of the room, arms crossed, a report clutched in one hand and partially crinkled, and the way his eyes were squinting, she could tell he had one of his headaches. His feet were planted firmly on the ground, though, so despite any aches, this wasn't one of his worst days.

"Well?" he demanded again, sounding tired and aggravated and a little betrayed all in one.

Considering how many things she was keeping from him—well, really it was everyone more than him specifically—she chose to let him continue rather than filling in the blanks with the wrong details. Or, she'd intended to. However, he wasn't budging, instead fixing her with a firm, upset glare, his hand crinkling that paper a little more.

If she could only read it…he'd sense a spell though, and in his current mood, it might make him paranoid if she was subtle and he didn't realize she was the caster right away.

Stepping over to him slowly, still trying to figure out how to get a look at that paper, she took in a slow breath and went for a broader statement to try to get him talking again. "I wasn't trying to upset you."

It was true enough, after all. She cared about him, and didn't like to see him upset.

"She's my sister, and my problems are mine to tell," Cullen snapped. As he spoke, his voice shifted from anger to despair. "I don't want her knowing about…" One of his hands went to his head, fingers bracing against his forehead. Now that his stance had shifted, she could see that he was suffering tremors and that made her forget any attempts to avoid accusations.

Hurrying over to him, she lightly took his arm, and led him over to the bed. It was the closest furniture in the room, and though he seemed agitated, he let her lead him there, sinking down onto the blankets.

She started to slip down next to him, but when he looked up at her, she stopped. The look on his face held such…betrayal. Like she'd broken his confidence.

"How could you?"

"Cullen, I'm not sure what you think I did."

At that, he started to respond and then looked around, a little disoriented, for the paper he'd had with him. With a meek movement, he pointed toward it.

Finley stooped down to pick up the letter—it had fallen from his hands when he sat down—and skimmed it openly, perplexed. Then, finally, she reached the line that had upset him.

You know, it's fine if you don't want to tell me about it. I have Finley now, and she tells me everything.

That was laughable, really. To think that she would tell any one person everything would be…

"I didn't want them to know how low I've fallen," Cullen whispered, head in his hands.

"Cullen," Finley knelt in front of him, reaching out to lightly clasp his arms. "I don't think most people consider being a general to be a low."

"You know what I mean," he snapped back, though his anger had wilted, and he was left with simple misery. "I can't even hold a quill steady."

"That will pass. It always does," Finley offered. When he didn't seem convinced, she shifted a little closer to him, peering up into his face to catch his gaze. "Mia started writing me a few months ago because she's always so worried about you, and, according to her, even when you do write it's so vague that she feels like she doesn't know if she should be worried or not."

Cullen stared at her, expression pained, guilty.

Squeezing his arms, she continued, "So I write to her and tell her about how you smooth your hair back and how I mess it up, and you grumble. I tell her about how you're teaching me chess and how part of you wants to stoop to Sera's level and go into an all-out prank war, but how you're too responsible to do that." She paused and then added, "I tell her how fast you run when you lose at Wicked Grace."

That brought out a groan, though it seemed more relieved than upset. "You don't…talk about this…?"

"Not once," Finley reassured him, stretching up to kiss his nose. "Like you said, that's for you to tell, not me." She started to settle back down, but one of his hands slipped into her hair, keeping her closer. "You should know by now that I don't tell secrets that aren't mine."

He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against hers. "I should."

There was more guilt in his voice.

Shifting up, she moved so that she was sitting beside him and patted her leg, letting him slump over, his head resting in her lap. She began to play with his hair, and conjured a little bit of magic to help numb the pain.

He reached up to clasp her free hand and brought it down to his chest. "When wereyou going to tell me you're writing to my sister? After she told you all of the stories of me being an idiot boy?"

"I thought the barn incident was quite endearing, really," Finley replied. That elicited another groan, one of his hands reaching up to cover his face. "I wasn't intentionally keeping it from you…it just never came up."

Cullen splayed his fingers and peered up at her through them. They stayed that way for a moment before he let his hand fall back down to rest on his chest, beside hers. "I believe I owe you an apology."

"Ssshhh," Finley murmured, still playing with his hair. "I'd have been mad, too, if I thought you were telling all of my secrets to someone."

"I'd have to know your secrets to tell them," he mumbled in response.

He had her there.

Thinking it over carefully, she finally leaned forward a little, peering down at him. "Did I ever tell you about the time I was turned into a tree frog?"

His gaze snapped open. "What?"

"It's a fun story, really," Finley offered. "I was a very pretty tree frog."