Page 191 of The Crown’s Temptation

"I dislike not knowing."

"So do I."

She turned to look at me for the first time since I sat down.

"How did you step through the ward?" I asked. "When you came to Urasal. Colsar said he saw you do it.”

She considered the question as though deciding how much of the answer to give. "My mother banked some of my feeder blood from when I was a baby. Feeder blood is one of the few things that can make one strong enough to leave Morrath."

"So she saved it for you," I said. "And gave it to you one day."

"No." She said it simply. "My mother has been too busy lying and killing to secure our future." A pause. "While she was gone I found it and drank it.” A pause. “All of it.”

I looked at her. "You were not supposed to know it was there, I bet.”

"I was not supposed to know it was there," she agreed, without particular remorse.

"Why would she keep that from you?"

Aviaryn was quiet for a moment. "I do not know," she said. Then, after another pause, "Perhaps she felt I was not ready. Perhaps she had another plan for it." She shrugged. "Perhaps she simply did not think to tell me."

"And you drank it anyway."

She looked at me. "I have lived in Morrath my entire life," she said. "Inside tunnels and palaces and wards that exist to keep things in." She put another sweet in her mouth. "I did not need anyone to give me permission to know what the outside of it looked like."

I said nothing.

She turned back to the twins. I watched them with her.

"Do you think, perhaps, that I would be back in five days?"

I smiled. "I think it is possible."

Neither of us said anything after that.

Finally she stood, dusting off her dress.

"I suppose Urasal has sweets."

"It does."

"Better sweets?"

"I doubt it."

She wrinkled her nose.

"I will go anyway."

She started to walk away, then stopped.

"When everything is finished..."

"Yes?"

"...can I come back and see them?"

I smiled.