*COMPLETE* Allayria promised to do what it takes to stop the Jarles, to make the ugly decision. She thinks, at last, she understands what the dynast meant. The lesson earned from the top of that lonely cliff and given the dark murky water below.
It...
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Fae watches them walk through the tower doors, skinny, knock-kneed things, all tufts of hair and wide, searching eyes. She descends from her room, the bruises beneath her eyes faded, the ones on her neck hidden beneath fabric.
Caj stays behind, waiting at the door as she walks further into the hall, over to the small huddle that constricts at the sight of them, these two beings of words and nightmares, made flesh in the daylight.
Fae kneels down next to the children, not minding the dust on the floor, not caring about the dirt on their knees.
"My name is Fae," she tells them. "Lord Toulonne said you all needed a place to stay, so I thought you could come here, if you like."
"This is Helen," she says, gesturing over to the woman who hovers in the doorway, watching. "She's going to be taking care of you while you stay here."
And then she drops her voice to a whisper only they can hear: "She looks intimidating, but she's not all that bad. She likes butterscotch."
A girl blinks at her, eyes round and transfixed. She's clutching a small, worn toy in her hands whose seams are torn and edges singed.
"Is there food?" one of the boys asks suddenly, peering around and then shrinking back when his voice carries across the hall.
Fae feels a smile—a real, genuine one, almost foreign now to her—touch her lips.
"Lots," she tells them. "Tomorrow I'll take you to the kitchen. I can introduce you to the cook. If you're good, he might let you lick out the icing bowls."
She watches their tiny feet pad across the corridor, trailing like ducklings behind Helen as they wander to their rooms, stomachs soon to be filled and eyes sleepy. She watches and she feels the hand on her shoulder, warm and anchored in a different reality.
She turns back toward it, back toward Caj, and he gazes at her for a moment before saying: "It's time."
She voices the thought that has been lurking inside her head as they climb, side by side, up the long, winding stairs.
"We're going to have to make him official."
"Ben knows," she adds, explains. "It's why... it's why it went so poorly. Keno has been made."
It's a few more steps before he replies, voice low but even: "I know."
She glances over but he keeps his gaze fixed ahead.
"I told him to come," he says after a minute and she stops on a landing.
Caj turns back, looking everywhere else first before he looks at her.
"He's more useful in here now," he says. "Plugging up all the holes he used to get inside."
"He's going to love that," she answers and the line of his mouth twitches upward.
