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“You may as well let it out,” he said finally.
Verol stopped pacing and faced him. “She doesn’t understand what she’s getting into with Tolvannen.”
“I believe she understands quite well,” Marquin replied mildly. “I do not believe she cares.”
“Nor do you, it seems.”
Marquin settled his cup on the coffee table in response to Verol’s caustic tone. “You have…always judged him harshly.”
“And you have always judged him more kindly than he deserves.”
“Perhaps. But as Clare pointed out, how well does either of us know him? I won’t disagree with you on his behavior.” But he remembered Numair Tolvannen as a quiet child—before the boy’s mother had died and he’d become…whatever it was he’d become. “He is extravagant, he drinks too much, and he doesn’t appear to have a faithful bone in his body. But if you honestly think any of that is a danger to Clare, you haven’t watched her closely enough.”
“The man will sleep with anything that walks,” Verol muttered.
Marquin raised an eyebrow. “You know, people said the same thing about you, once.”
Verol opened his mouth, clicked it shut. After another moment of recovery he said, “Please tell me you aren’t suggesting that Numair Tolvannen can be saved by the love of a good woman.”
“No. I’m suggesting that people do need friends, and I’m relieved to see her recognize the fact. Have you forgotten what she looked like when we found her? She looked at this world like it was an alien place worth nothing but damnation.”
“Can you blame her? She’d obviously been through hell.”
“No, I don’t blame her. But I also don’t forget what she is. What she is capable of, now she’s survived to adulthood, if even a fraction of the old stories are true. I don’t forget that if she is pushed too far, I will be grateful if there is a single person on this continent worth a damn to her who might be able to pull her back.”
Verol studied him with something like reproach. “She isn’t a monster.”
“No. But she isn’t fully human, either. And I don’t think her experiences have left her with much empathy for the state of humanity. Let her find her peace where she can.”
In the emptiness provided by Marquin’s and Verol’s absences, Clare considered Alys, who considered her in return.
“What are you going to do?” Alys asked.
Clare rolled her eyes. “Don’t worry, I don’t intend to take the stage at my next event and announce your continued existence to the world.”
“You announced it to the entire room.”
“I announced it to people who already knew, and only because you attacked me. I don’t like verbal assaults. I tend to retaliate.”
“I didn’t attack you.”
Clare smiled. “Didn’t you?”
Alys settled into a chair with no-longer-disguised courtly grace, looking every inch a noble lady despite her common-made breeches and tunic.
“Perhaps,” she admitted. “But if you don’t intend to use this against me, why bother figuring it out?”
“I’m curious by nature. And it was too easy to figure out.”
“That can hardly be all of it.”
Clare hesitated. “I…owe Marquin and Verol. And you are unknown with the potential to have dangerous enemies that could put them in jeopardy.”
“Them,” Alys asked, “or you?”
Clare smiled. “Why don’t we settle on both.”
Alys sighed. “No one’s actually looking for me. Not anymore. They wanted me gone, so I’m right where I’m supposed to be.”
