Her throat was dry, words catching on rough edges, and she had to clear it twice before she spoke.
"I'm back." It wasn't what she'd wanted to say—an ineffectual opening for what would already be a difficult evening—but she didn't actually know what to say, so it was something. She waited, bracing herself to be near him again, for the sweeping hug that would lift her from her feet and—he straightened, eyes dropping to the carpet.
"So you are." His voice sounded different too. Not as hoarse as hers, but reserved.
Numair smoothed out a scroll she just noticed had been clutched in his left hand and kept his eyes on the parchment as he closed the door behind him and crossed the room to move behind his desk, walking by her with a wide berth. The only physical hint of him was the waft of cool air against her skin from where he'd displaced it.
He had not, however, asked her to leave before he closed the door. It was something.
He sat, shoving the scroll into a drawer with an audible thump, and leaned back in his chair with his hands clasped in his lap. He stared at them instead of her, breathing too controlled to be natural. Finally, with the wave of one hand and a quiet sound from the back of his throat, he motioned to the empty chair across from him. For all the time she'd spent in his study, she wasn't sure she'd ever sat in it. They spent their time together on the settee, or on the rug in front of the hearth, or—if birds were involved, which was not uncommon—at the window seat.
She took a seat, feeling both relief and discomfort at sitting in a real chair. The plush give of the cushions made her want to sink into them, but her legs felt ungainly in a position she was no longer used to. She crossed one over the other, feeling it ease her stiffness.
"When did you get back?" He was toying with the cuff of one sleeve, glancing at her when he spoke before dropping his head.
"Just now." She wanted him to know she came to him first. "Half a candle mark, maybe."
"You must be tired." There was just a hint of the softness she was used to in his voice, and it was gone in the space of an inhale. "Is there something I can help you with?"
She blinked and tried to push down the rise of anger in her throat. There was a need to protect herself that urged her to say something equally distant, or angrier, or aimed for a weak spot because she knew them all as well as he knew hers. Or used to. Had she let too much time pass?
She looked him over carefully, using his unwillingness to meet her eye to her advantage. He was too thin, too pale, too tired. His usually well-kept hair was fine by anyone else's standards, but limp and haphazardly held by his. And the lines—when she pictured him she was always particularly fond of his mouth, and the sensitive nature of it. Something had been lost of that sensitivity. Frown lines—so faint she wasn't sure anyone who didn't spend too much time thinking about his mouth would even notice—were beginning to form. His study was in a similar state of subtle decay. Books stacked on his shelves at odd angles—piling and, here and there, tumbling in precarious patterns—spoke to the loss of a cataloguing system she knew for a fact he took pride in. A stack of plates on the table near the settee showed he'd been allowed to eat alone too often—and that he wasn't allowing the servants in to clean. He was working, though, and that was good—on the worktable at the far corner of the room, his favorite one, she saw an unfurled map weighed down in all four corners by clumps of crystals vibrating with the glow of his gift. Over it, a delicate silver stand held some sort of pendant on a gold chain. Instead of hanging downward, the oval pendant hovered over a point on the map she couldn't make out with the chain drooping between it and the stand. It wasn't a magic she recognized, but she rarely understood his experiments before he explained them.
Daine swallowed, her anger subsiding enough to remind her that she'd come to be honest with him no matter how difficult it proved.
She turned back to him. "I wanted to see you."
He sighed and it was almost a scoff. "Forgive me, but I'm having a hard time believing that."
"I wouldn't be here if it weren't true." She picked at a hangnail.
"Clearly." His jaw clenched as he spoke and she flinched.
"Should I leave?" She barely asked the question when he spoke, looking at her sharply and really meeting her gaze for the first time.
"No." He swallowed and settled back into his chair, which is when she realized that he'd even started to rise. "No, don't go."
Now that she could see him clearly she could see the anger, but also something else—something she'd only seen a handful of times before. On the boat from Carthak. When she'd surfaced, briefly, from her Unicorn Fever delirium. Once more, just a year prior, when word of his father's death had arrived. With the first and the latter he'd succumbed, but the strain of fighting off tears had been the same each time—as it was now.
"Daine," his voice cracked, "what happened?"
"What have you been told?" She wasn't entirely sure where to start—she knew she would need to tell her side of things, but if there were rumors perhaps it would be best to deal with them first.
He laughed, bitterly. "Told? No one will tell me anything, and not for lack of effort on my part." He leaned back again and she could hear him scuff his boot across the floor. "George told me that you'd joined the Shadow Service."
"That's it?"
"Near enough. Told me you'd joined—that you'd asked to—and then told me that your location was need-to-know only and that I didn't need to know." His hand on the desk flexed, knuckles turning white before he released the tension. "Nothing since then, but we're not exactly on speaking terms. Of course, Jon backed him up when I requested clearance, so..." He let the statement linger, throwing his hand in the air as if it finished the sentence for him.
"Well, to be fair—" he shot her a look that very clearly communicated how uninterested in fair he was and she pivoted mid-speech. "Onua was probably the only one who knew enough of it. Outside my mission, anyway—the why of it all."
"Onua hasn't spoken to me in half-a-year, Daine." He held up a hand when she opened her mouth, stopping her. "Actually, that's not strictly accurate. She called me a fucking idiot, so that took at least four words."
She gaped. She hadn't expected a reaction of that magnitude. "It wasn't her her place—or her burden, really—to tell you. I'd thought she might—or that Alanna may have guessed—"
"That's someone else whose none too pleased with you, you should know."
Daine winced, looking down to see that she'd drawn blood where she'd separated the hangnail from her chapped skin. "I've really mucked everything up." At the time, everything had felt like it was about the two of them, or the lack of a them, and she hadn't considered all of the other people her actions would hurt. How many of them had supported her and given her homes, only for her to leave them.
"Yes." He sighed, "though I doubt permanently. I think we all know that you wouldn't have left without reason—" he drew in a shaky breath, and closed his eyes. "Was—" another faltering breath "—was I that reason?"
She didn't want to answer, but it was clear he hadn't wanted to ask. "Yes."
He pulled into himself, crossing his arms over his chest. "What did I do to you? I can't—that night, I can't remember anything and I've tried but it's—gone, it's all gone, and—" he looked stricken "—did I force you to do something?"
She blanched, shaking her head. "You would never."
He shrugged, holding up a hand, "Wouldn't I? I'm physically, magically, capable." Disgust was clear in his voice and on his face. "All I know is that I got drunk enough to not remember the night—which means I was drunk enough to not control my actions—and the next time I saw you, you—" he shuddered, "you recoiled every time I got near you. And you'd barely talk to me. And then you left. You just—just went away with no warning, no way—no desire—to be contacted. Particularly not by me."
"I—" but he wasn't finished.
"And then this," he spat, wrenching open a drawer to throw a battered letter on top of the desk. "You leave Kit in Tkaa's care over mine? When I'm her da—" He clamped his mouth shut, looking stricken. He returned to tugging at his cuff, brows knitting when he spoke with a vulnerable voice. "Clearly I'd considered—presumed—my relationship to her was more significant than you did. I had just thought—"
"You thought right," Daine cut him off. Eager to put this misunderstanding to rest above all others. "You're her da." When he didn't respond she offered what little she could. "And I know she thinks of you that way too."
"She does?" He glanced up, hurt evident, and she nodded.
"Of course she does." It had been a mistake, not sending her to him. Truth be told she couldn't remember what she'd been thinking when she penned the request to Tkaa and not Numair—perhaps only that she'd been trying not to think of him at all. An egregious error. "Is she here?" An ache bloomed in her chest, becoming sharp when he shook his head.
"With her Grandparents, since the Equinox. She'll be back on Awakening." He smiled, ruefully. "Of course, dragons and cross at leisure but we decided it was best to schedule a time and a place so as not to incite panic."
Their Majesties had been grateful for the support of Kit's family during the Immortals War, but had some strong words about their unexpected appearances over the next few years.
"Oh, good. That's not so far—I've missed her."
"I'm surprised you didn't take her with you." There was a question underneath the statement.
"I gave her the choice."
"Ah," he replied, softly, and if he had planned to say more he decided against it.
"I've missed you, too." She broke the silence and then thought better of it, too late, when she saw him bristle in response.
"Not enough to come back. Not enough not to leave in the first place." He ran a shaking hand through his hair, several strands tumbling free of their fixing. "Gods, I'm so angry with you. I don't—" he looked at his own hands as if trying to comprehend something "—I don't even think I knew how angry. But I've missed you so much, and I'm sorry but I don't know what for." He dropped his hands. "So maybe it's myself I'm angry at."
"It's fair," she wrapped her arms around herself, "if you're mad. I can't blame you. I'm angry with you too—but I've still missed you, and I'm sorry for the hurt I've caused."
He tapped the surface of his desk with two fingers at a rapid pace, watching her from beneath long lashes. "I've never missed anything like I've missed you these last months."
"I should have made it so you knew where I was, at the very least," she sighed. When drafting her intake with George she'd not only omitted him from her list of those who should be notified of major events, but explicitly indicated that he was not to be told where she was. More apologies she owed. "I can't imagine how I'd feel if I had no notion of where you eve—"
"—of course I knew where you were," he scoffed, flicking his fingers towards the back corner of the study. "What's the use of being one of the most powerful mages in the realm if I couldn't even find you?"
Her eyes followed his motion, falling once more on the strange apparatus hovering over the map. Looking more closely she noted two things: a small pinprick of copper glowing on what she now recognized was Corus, just underneath the pendant, and that his magical signature within the crystals was not stagnant but more like a current. She knew enough of magic to know—
"Are you feeding that? All the time?" She looked back at him, horrified. That kind of constant draw, however small, took a toll on any mage. His grey pallor was more than poor sleep, then. He didn't respond, though—hadn't even heard her question—and was rising from his seat instead.
"You're injured." He'd closed the distance between them, kneeling next to her chair, before she had time to process his words and it wasn't until she felt his hand, fingers shaking but gentle, grasp her arm that she understood. Looking to where he held her she could see fresh blood staining the linen. She must have disturbed the wound when she crossed her arms.
"Oh, that. It's nothing too bad; just fresh still."
"You've not seen a healer?" He looked up at her, face close—too close—to her own but the anger was gone and he looked like the Numair she knew again.
"I came to see you first." She shrugged. A number of emotions flitted across his face; happiness and annoyance notable among them.
"Let's get you to one now, then." He tugged at her, softly, to urge her to stand but she put her hand on his to stop him.
"I'll go tomorrow, I promise, but—" she took a deep breath and wet her lips "—it took me long time to muster the courage to come here and—can we finish this, please? Now that we've started—" her voice cracked and he settled back to his knees, nodding.
"Alright. Will you let me attend to it, at least?"
She nodded and he urged her to stay seated, moving around the room efficiently to gather a small pile of supplies—gauze, scissors, a metal clasp, a pitcher of water, and several potions and poultices among them. She watched him and let herself enjoy the simple pleasure of watching him at work. The simple pleasure of watching him.
She held out her arm to him when he returned, waiting patiently while he organized his supplies into a neat pile near his right knee. He took her wrist and she dropped her face into her hand—how long had it been since she'd felt someone else's touch on her skin? Too long and she fought the sudden urge to sob.
"Does it hurt?" He asked, misinterpreting the type of pain she was in, and she shook her head. He rolled her sleeve up with measured rolls of the fabric, making a quiet noise when he realized it would be too tight to uncover the wound. She raised her hand, keeping her fingers against her forehead, to look at him when he paused before sitting up to unbutton her shirt. His hand on hers, and the shake of his head, stilled her. With care and precision, he used the pair of small, brass scissors to cut along the length of her sleeve and pull it away from her skin.
He drew in a breath, making a small clucking sound with his tongue, and lifted her arm to get a better look. It was bleeding, sluggishly, but had begun scabbing over along the edges. Deep enough to need attention, but not so much she was concerned about permanent damage. The dark bruising around the perimeter made it look worse than it was—made it feel worse than it was.
"Are you sure I can't convince you to come to the healing wing? Or for me to get Alanna?" He followed the question with a soft murmur she knew to be a cleaning charm and the water in the pitcher stirred with black fire—behind him she saw the same motion mirrored in the sleet that was melting against the relative warmth of his window, and she heard a shudder from his wine cabinet. The soft crack of glass told her that at least once bottle had broken. He paid no mind; only wet a cloth in the water and set to cleaning the cut. She winced at the pressure but shook her head.
"It can wait until tomorrow; it's not infected and we've already passed the point where there'll be a scar." She bit her lip when he pressed against the deepest part, cloth staining red, and swallowed a pained noise.
"I've an anesthetic here; I just need to get a better look first," he assured her. She nodded her understanding. "What happened?"
She grinned without humor. "Hunter. Just past Babet. Nearly missed me."
"Nearly took your arm off," he grumbled. "You could have stopped in Tebond. Coram would have let you recover there."
"I wanted to see you." She looked away from his hands—somehow seeing what he was doing made the pain worse. It was better when she couldn't anticipate it. "I'd waited long enough."
"That, at least, we can agree on." He dropped a bloody cloth to the carpet and she winced, knowing it would stain, before wetting a new one. "Can you—would you please tell me what happened?" It wasn't a demand, but a plea.
She sighed. This is what she came here to do, and yet...
"Where would you like me to start?" She'd thought over what to say on her flight home—endlessly turning the same words in different combinations over in her mind. And now, the opportunity in front of her, she was at a loss.
"The beginning of it all, I suppose." He'd stopped cleansing the wound and was instead leaning in to inspect it closely, fingers pulling at her skin to let him see where he needed.
"In the beginning, there was only darkness—" she grinned, despite herself, to turn his own tricks against him and to her pleasure received a soft laugh—though a brief one.
"Daine."
"I couldn't resist. I won't give you the lecture on precise askance, though."
"That's appreciated."
"Let's see—actually, can I have something to drink?" Her voice wasn't just rough with disuse—her throat, and tongue were dry and she hadn't had anything to drink in hours. He fetched another pitcher, pouring half the cleansed water into the new one, and a glass. She drank deeply while he returned to his work. When she was done, she clutched the glass in her lap and spoke as evenly as she was able. "You remember coming down to the barracks—yes?—and drinking with Sarge?"
"Drinking too much with Sarge," he sighed, scooping a dollop of viscous balm from a small clay pot and into the palm of his hand.
"And nothing after?"
"Bits, I suppose. I don't remember seeing you, though I remember looking for you." He paused, balm-dipped fingers hovering over the wound. His brows drew together and a frown tugged at the corners of his mouth. "Did we dance?"
She couldn't help but laugh. "No, that was Buri. And I'm not sure if it counted as dancing—"
"I suppose I owe her my condolences," he groaned.
"Might be best not to mention it if she hasn't by now." This was almost easy—the familiar rhythm of their conversations felt like coming home. But almost wasn't close enough; not for this. "Well, you were fair gone. You came to sit with us—we made you come sit with us—and I thought you were just being silly. I realize now why Onua was so concerned—you were being fair affectionate; I just didn't realize it was actually about me and not how you would've been with anyone sitting by you."
"When you say affectionate...?"
"Oh, this isn't the bad part," she sighed. The balm was helping and the pleasant, cooling sensation spreading through her upper arm was a relief. She hadn't realized quite how much pain she was in. "Flirty, but that's far from odd for anyone whose played even a round of King's Folly, and, well, the nuzzling—"
"—nuzzling?"
"Yes, that was when we decided you needed to sleep it off—you were just about unconscious anyway—so we took you to my room." She leaned her head back, closing her eyes. "You should thank Sarge for that—Onua and I weren't tall enough together to get you there. Although I suppose he deserved it, what with being such a bad influence and all." She paused, wondering what of the night was needful to share and what could be left alone.
"And in your room?" She knew him well enough to picture him despite note being able to see him. Knew that the brief pause in his hand was accompanied by the wetting of his lips and a forced swallow.
"Nothing—I went back to the party." She drew a deep breath, sitting back up, and blinked in the firelight. Gods, she was tired. "Well, Onua had a talk with me first. She—" this was hard to say "—she'd gleaned how I felt. About you, that is. And, I suppose, she thought you might feel the same so she told me to think about letting on a little."
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye and saw him open his mouth and close it again. He had the same look on his face as he did when he was trying to decipher a particularly dense text, or gain insight into some new, arcane puzzle.
"And I probably let that make me a little too hopeful. I should have been—" she sighed "—well, I should have been more careful."
He wiped the balm from his hand, and began unravelling the roll of gauze.
"When I came back you seemed better. You were able to string a sentence together, at least, and I know how you love to do that." She decided to leave out how he'd rested against her neck, how she couldn't help but think about the feel of it even at the height of her anger. "We talked for a bit and you seemed—oh, you were drunk and I should have taken it for what it was—same as I would have had it been anyone but you—but you talked to me in a way that a little hope turned into a little more hope..." she trailed off. She didn't want to think about the garden, or the winding stairs, where a little hope turned into a lot of hope. Hope for that fragile thing they'd shattered.
"And then?" His voice was quiet and he completed the first rotation of gauze around her arm, pulling it taut as he began a second.
"I walked you back. To your own rooms. It was really late by then, and it took a long time. You—we—were fair distractible." Her voice dropped to a whisper. "It was lovely." Could he hear the grief in her voice? She didn't want to share that. How deep it went. It was hard enough sharing the simple facts of it.
"What happe—when we got here, did you come in?"
"No," she shook her head. "I just dropped you off, but—" she could do this. She could say this and not cry. "You asked if you could escort me to the Midsummer Banquet." His hands at her arm, occupied with securing the bandage with a metal clip, froze.
"Did you accept?" He asked slowly. The clip was secured and he tied the cut ends of her sleeve around her wrist to secure it the best he could. When he tugged the fabric together over her bandage, his hands stayed softly against her arm.
"I did. And then—" she wished she could leave it there, but they were already so far in, "you said that you wanted to court me. And I said yes to that too."
His hands pressed into her arm a little too tight—putting enough pressure to bring pain despite the numbness, and she winced. He backed off immediately and sunk to his heels. He wasn't looking at her.
"Why did you say yes?" He sounded younger than she'd ever thought of him as, and confused, and a little like he wasn't even talking to her.
"Because I'm in—because I have feelings for you and I thought you had them for me. And, Horse Lord's, did I ever want that with you."
"The escort?" He leaned forward, resting his forehead against the arm of her chair.
"The escort. The courtship. Everything."
"Everything?" She could barely hear him.
"And looking back—that wasn't really fair, holding you to something you said when you probably had little notion as to who you were even talking to—"
"—I'm sure I knew."
She brushed it off. "Still, when you'd drunk enough that you probably would've felt romantic towards anyone. It just—I was so excited and there was so much fuss with the dress because I wanted you to—" she swallowed, mortified tears prickling at her eyes. "When you came in with Lady Solise, I just felt so stupid. I had to get away. I can't blame you for not wanting to be with me like that—I'd known your type well enough, and that I'm certainly not it. I let myself forget it, though. I thought I'd made peace with it a long time ago but clearly, well, clearly I'd held out hope and then I let myself get carried away with it. Of course you'd prefer someone like her and here I was thinking you'd want me—"
"I did." He looked up at her with red-rimmed eyes.
"You did what?" She wanted to reach out to him, brush the hair that had fallen into his face away, but something held her back.
"Want that. You. To be with you." He shuddered, reaching towards her but not touching her. "I do want that." His breathing, carefully controlled until now, came in unsteady heaves.
"I don't understand," she shook her head. She'd prepared herself to clear the air—let things settle as they'd landed—but his words tilted her understanding of what was between them once more.
"I'm in love with you." He shrugged, shoulders drooping like a long-suffered weight had left them.
Her stomach rolled with the feelings that hit her in rapid succession—confusion, elation, regret, anger. "You can't."
"I can assure you, I can." He laughed, softly, and she knew it was at himself. "Despite my attempts not to, my better judgement, any sense of propriety I possess—the only thing I can't do is not love you."
It was her turn to laugh, that roll of her stomach sinking to the bottom like a stone in water. "Despite your better judgement." She inhaled deeply to hold her tears at bay.
"That's not how I meant it. I'm so much older than you, Daine. The things people would say—"
"So you brought her instead."
"Not instead. Not on purpose," he huffed, frustrated. "I'd asked her already. She was the one I forgot, if anything, when I asked you."
"That does make sense, since you were announced with her. But if the two of you were that serious—"
"We weren't—and I want to be very clear that any reference to her is past tense—anything that I would have called serious. I had no idea she'd requested a joint entry." He did seem vexed.
She made a small noise in the back of her throat. Solise wouldn't be the first Lady of the Court to try and make something seem more committed than it was, but she still didn't know what to make of it. And it didn't help the anger coiling in the pit of her stomach at the memory. She wasn't sure what to do with that—how to suppress it—just as she didn't know what to say next. He saved her the decision.
"And I did tell you—that night, I told you I didn't remember anything. You knew I hadn't known I'd asked you. I tried to talk to you." His voice was rising.
"The damage had already—"
"But you could have told me. I've shared so many things with you—things I've never told anyone because they scare me to talk about; make me vulnerable in a way that I've never wanted to be with anyone else—and you couldn't have given me the same courtesy?" She wasn't the only one still angry, then. Any tenderness he'd shown when tending to her wounds was gone. "Mithros, Mynoss, and Shakith, Daine. Do you know what the past six months have been like? What I've imagined I must have done to you? You just left. You left me because I—" his mouth snapped shut and sat down hard on the rug, extending his legs in front of him. "I don't want to minimize the slight, but—"
"You're doing a fair good job of it. The slight?" She snapped.
"No, that's not the right—I'm sorry, just give me a moment to—" he dropped his face into his hands "—I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry..." Each repetition was staggered between an uneven breath, volume fading until she could barely hear him. He pulled his knees to his chest, pushing against them with his elbows, and drew his head up—hands steepled against his lips. Each inhale was ragged, and he fought to speak between each weeping shudder. "Can we—can we start over, please?"
"From where?" She wanted to reach to him and she wanted to flee again. Wanted to comfort him, and wanted to be safe from how much he could hurt her.
"Anywhere you want. Before any of this. Before then, even. Anywhere that will make this right. Please."
"I—" oh gods, she couldn't quite believe what she was about to say. Not when everything she'd wanted for so long was pleading with her to take it. But there it was, rising in her throat like bile. "I don't know if we can." Everything felt very far away, as if she was watching him cry on the floor through a looking glass. It wasn't just her arm that was numb—it was everything. All of her.
"No—there has to be something I can do. Please—" a sob "—tell me what I can—anything—"
There wasn't anything she could promise. There wasn't anything she could give. She'd wanted him for so long, and now she wasn't sure if she had anything left for him. The anger she thought she'd left in the north was still there—simmering, rolling, pulling her under—and if she couldn't let that go there was no future for them. But that didn't mean she didn't want one. "I need some time to think," she shook her head, "I'm not sure what I expected, coming here tonight, but—" she rose and he reached out to grab her hand, stopping her from stepping away.
"Please, don't leave." He looked up at her and she wanted to cry, but for the first time not for herself. He was shattered. "Don't leave. Don't leave." His hand grasped hers, twining his fingers through hers. "Don't leave me again."
"I'm not going away again; I promise." She squeezed his hand. Coming here was supposed to help heal them, and all she could see was more hurt. "But I need a little time to think—and, gods, to rest. I don't—" she swallowed. "I don't know that I can promise you anything except that I'll be back to talk more. When I've had enough time to think."
His face broke but he nodded, pulling her hand to rest against his lips. "Okay." He murmured words she couldn't hear against her skin. Their hands were wet with his grief. One question rose to a volume she could hear. "You'll be back?"
"I promise."
He nodded again, inhaling deeply in an obvious attempt to calm himself down. "Can you stay, just a little longer? Just a moment—so I can—"
"A moment more." She wiped the snot from her own nose with the sleeve of her free arm, close to her own breakdown. She waited until his breathing stopped coming in gasping heaves and had settled to a series of soft shudders. He released her hand with a squeeze and pushed himself to his feet. His back to her, he leaned against the desk to brace himself.
"Will you be alright?" She asked, needing to leave but not wanting to. Not exactly.
He laughed, wetly.
"Alright enough for tonight, I mean" her voice softened, aware of how unfair the question had been.
"Yes. Alright enough," he said in a ragged voice. He half-turned to look at her over his shoulder. "I'm sorry."
"So am I."
And she left.
The hallways were quiet and she was so tired. It occurred to her that the Healer's Wing might not be a bad idea—closer than her rooms, no storm to brave, and no need to drag herself back up the hill to have her arm looked at come morning. But her own bed would be nice. Her room, the barn cats and whatever new litters had been birthed. She needed something familiar.
She was preparing herself to cross the breezeway—her first, but temporary, unavoidable exposure to the elements—when she stopped dead in her tracks.
"Hullo." She said, nodding to George. He leaned in an alcove, twirling a coin between his fingers in a trick she had never quite mastered despite both he and Numair's attempts to teach her.
"Hello, Lass." He jerked his head, motioning for her to join him on a nearby bench. "Welcome home."
"Thank you." She pulled her knees to her chest, unprepared for another encounter.
"Not so good to be back?" He'd leaned forward, elbows on knees, and was watching her closely. He'd always had a way of looking casual when he was really gathering more information than anyone had a right to through sight alone.
"Complicated to be back."
"Fair enough." He motioned to her arm. "Is that the worst of it?"
She nodded. "It is."
"Have you seen a proper healer?"
"It's been tended."
"I'll take that as a no." He replied, not without humor. "We'll wake Alanna so she can see to it."
"Oh, no," she smiled, "I've seen her temper at being woken in the small hours. It can wait until tomorrow."
He grinned, "I think you'll find that sometimes her temper can't be avoided, and it's more a choice of what will anger her more. Like not seeing to you when you've been wounded."
"Just tell her I didn't arrive until morning. She can some wake me then—if she can; I think I might sleep for a week."
"I suppose I'm in enough trouble," he smirked, "one more white lie won't hurt much."
"Oh, no. Alanna...?"
"Don't worry, lass. She didn't stay mad at me long. She never can," his smirk shifted to a grin, "it's one of her biggest weaknesses." He sighed, "Others, though."
She grimaced, "how bad?"
"Well, Jon was," he weighed his words, "displeased, to say the least. I'm on probation." He seemed more than a little amused, so the punishment probably hadn't been as effective as their monarch had hoped.
"Why?" She gaped.
"Ah, yes, that. You see, I didn't technically have—how should I put this—permission to enlist you. And since you were under the employ of the crown I—what's the word he used? Oh, yes—poached you. And, of course, Numair resigned from his Private Council so he's none too pleased about that."
"George."
"Don't worry: you're not in any trouble. Not with Their Majesties, anyway. As for me, I spent more of the early days on probation than not. Honestly, it's a nice little throwback. I'm thinking of causing more trouble moving forward." She laughed and he waited until the sound faded, echoing softly through the empty corridor, before his tone shifted. "But I do owe you an apology: I don't know what was going on when you left—and I won't ask—but you weren't in any state to be going. I should have stopped you. I—" he sighed, "I have a problem, sometimes, judging when to prioritize the work, and when to prioritize people."
"The work you do is for the people. It's always needful."
"Yes," he pursed his lips, "but you're important too. And you're more than the work you do."
"Thank you. You needn't apologize though—I shouldn't have put you in that position. I was," she searched for a word that was honest but not telling, "hurting. But I didn't mean to get you into hot water."
He waved her off, "Nothing that can't be repaired."
"Numair?" She said softly, wincing at the face he made.
"Ah, yes. Well, only time will tell with him, I suppose." He looked at her curiously. "You've seen him, then?"
She nodded, motioning back down the hallway from where she'd come. "Just now."
"That's when I knew I'd made a mistake, you know." He continued in response to her questioning look. "I didn't read your directive until you'd left, and when I saw he wasn't to receive any word of you—well, I knew I'd made a mistake."
"We—" her voice caught in her throat.
"You don't have to tell me anything, lass. It's not my business, nor my place. Just," he faltered, shifting to look down the hall, "I will say: I've never seen him so torn up. Not even when I first met him. I don't think I've told you that story—it can wait for another time—but I remember thinking I'd scarce seen someone so heartbroken and lost. This was worse. So, if you can find some kindness for him I'd consider it a personal favor. Whatever he did, I know he's sorry—and I think he'll do damn near anything to prove it to you."
"I don't want to be unkind," she said after a pause.
"I never thought you did." He clasped her shoulder and stood. "I think it's time you found your bed, Wildmage. You look dead on your feet."
She accepted his outstretched hand and the help to her feet. "How did you find me, anyway?"
He laughed, "I followed a cat. I got your letter, and started towards the barracks when I saw a herd of cats—is it a herd when it's cats?—coming from the kitchens and thought 'well, that looks right' and here we are!"
She smiled, thinking of the several kitchen cats that had greeted her when she'd left Numair's rooms, at least one of which found their way in. "It's a clowder of cats."
"A clowder? You learn something new every day." He eyed her with that same discerning look from earlier and it occurred to her that he'd never really stopped. "You'll make your way back alright? I won't find you asleep in a bush somewhere?"
"I'll be fine." She waved him off and turned to him, arms crossed over her chest. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course."
"Was it needful? The work?"
He smiled softly. "More than you know." He tugged at his ear, a habit she knew to mean he was checking for magics that might listen in on them. "Do you remember those courier reports your little army intercepted? Around the beginning of September?"
She nodded. She knew of their existence—and the clever ways in which the people had taken to thievery—but hadn't been privy to their contents as they never passed through her hands.
"Well, they changed everything. There was a mage from Galla—necromancer—working with Scanra. They had plans for these things. I don't know what to call them. Killing machines. Magecrafted, metal contraptions made purely to kill. It goes against the the Mage Accords of the Eastern Lands—so once the plot came to light we were able to rally support from our neighbors."
"The machines?"
"Dismantled what there was—and we found the Gallan. He's dead. Killed in action three weeks back. And now, with their army crippled," he shrugged. "Officially, war wasn't declared so there will be no treaty—but it's all but over. You've saved a lot of lives."
She nodded, lip trembling. She'd done some good, at least. For others if not herself. George squeezed her shoulder as he passed. "Go get some sleep. Things will feel better with some rest."
She watched him go. Whether it was the news of things with Scanra, or just the small reprieve of being alone in a familiar space, something settled in her. She turned back down the hall, away from the breezeway, and knocked on Numair's door once more.