I set the bread down. "Four days before the attack. Notice anything?"
A beat. She's deciding how much to give me, and I let her decide, because pressing her has already proven to be as effective as pressing stone.
"The growth was different," she admits finally. "Not the way the magical line makes things wrong — that's usually gradual. Diffuse. What I saw had a pattern." She tilts her head by a fraction, and I recognize the gesture: it's the same one I make when I'm building an argument I'm not fully sure of yet. "Fungus. Moving, but it wasn't random. And the feverroot itself — the stems were darker than they should have been, at the base. Where they pull moisture from the soil."
"Darker."
"Like the soil itself had changed composition. Closer to the surface than normal." She meets my eyes. "Which it hadn't done on its own."
She noticed the same thing I found carved into the grevhault's skull, arrived at it from a completely opposite direction, using a completely different method. I think about the diagram in my pocket. I think about the four days between her last visit, the attack, and the timing.
"You'll have guards. Outside your chambers. Starting tonight."
The temperature in the kitchen doesn't change. Elowen does.
"No."
"That wasn't a question."
"I'm aware of that." Her voice is perfectly level. "I'm also not a door that needs a lock on the outside."
"Someone drove a warped creature directly at you. Whatever you noticed in that forest is connected to why. Until I understand the connection?—"
"Untilyouunderstand it, you mean. And what, in the meantime I'm to stand still with soldiers outside my door and wait for yourunderstandingto arrive."
"You are to remain alive. Whether you find the arrangement agreeable is not a factor."
"I find you unreasonably inconvenient." She's not raising her voice. That's almost worse. "You told your staff I can't be moved or touched or spoken to without your explicit instruction, which I heard from three separate people before noon. And now you're extending it because?—"
"Because the forest isn't safe." I meet her eyes. "And you already know that."
She holds the statement where it is, and doesn't argue it. There's nothing to argue — she was there. She knows what came out of it.
"Guards," she says finally. "Outside my door."
"Yes."
"I still don't want guards outside my door."
"I know."
"I'm going to find them profoundly irritating."
"Yes."
She gazes down for a minute. Then she picks up the thyme Fenra abandoned and begins sorting it with her good hand, which is the closest thing to a retreat I suspect she allows herself.
She doesn't glance at me again, before moving to the far end. I watch the back of her head for longer than I need to. Then I leave.
The corridor outside is empty. I walk slowly, the parchment pressing against my ribs through the leather. I think about the four days, the precision, the timings and the burns of a lattice built to point at something.
At what, I don't yet know.
She noticed the odd reactions before the attack. She was there just four days before. And the creature that came out of it went directly for her — not past her, not through her. For her.
It may be coincidence. I have survived too long to trust that.
I adjust my path without thinking and take the corridor that passes her door. It remains closed. No sound from within. I do not slow, but I'm aware of it — the exact placement of the hinges, the distance to the nearest guard post, the time it would take to get here if something moved.
