Page 59

She reaches for the paper. I give it to her, and she reads standing beside the ledge.

She slows over the paragraph about travel, then covers her mouth. I wait beside the ledge, afraid to ask what she needs in case the answer is her bag brought to the door.

“I can go to Tesseny?”

“Once Edrin completes the release, yes. You can travel with the council escort if you want.”

“And they can’t put me in those rooms.”

“No. You’ll have the release with you, and the market will receive its own copy.”

She reads the line again. Then she sits down abruptly on the edge of the bed.

“I kept thinking they’d find another reason to wait.”

“So did I.”

She laughs once, unsteadily, and wipes beneath one eye.

I take a step toward her, then stop with no idea whether I ought to be finding her a cloth or leaving her alone to cry.

She reaches for me.

I sit beside her, and she puts her arms around my neck. I hold her while she presses her face against my shoulder.

“Thank you.”

“I’m sorry it took this long.”

She leans back to look at me. “You sent the request the first morning. I saw Ziku leave.”

I remember her watching him cross the courtyard that first morning. She could scarcely keep her eyes open, and I was already working out how to make the room more comfortable. I have spent these two weeks learning what she likes while she waited for the right to leave it.

“I’m also giving you travel money and enough for six months on your own,” I say. “You can use it however you choose.”

“If I leave?”

“You receive it either way. Reivaka is arranging it. Your own money stays yours.”

She looks toward Karev’s letter on the ledge.

“I wouldn’t need to take the job just to pay for a room.”

“No.”

“I might still want it.”

There are answers I could give about the work here. Reivaka would welcome help; the factors already listen to her. I had not realized until this moment that I had been counting on that.

“You might.”

She gets up and lays the approval beside Karev’s offer. She looks from one paper to the other.

“Does this change anything about the road hearing?” she asks.

“The road hearing is two days after your release. You don’t have to stay for it.”

“Do they still need me to explain what Neimura told me?”