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‘Probably best you don’t.’

‘You’re still taking the tonic I make?’ Wren asked, suddenly serious. ‘The one to prevent —’

‘Gods.’ Thea flushed. ‘Yes. I am.’

‘Then say no more, sister. But one moment.’ Wren reached out and fiddled with her hair, arranging it so that it cascaded down her shoulders in a more elegant wave. ‘There.’

‘Thanks.’

Wren shooed her to the door. ‘As you were.’

Thea wandered the corridors of the commanders’ residences, a large clean shirt and cloak tucked under her arm.

It was Esyllt who found her.

‘What are you doing loitering around here?’ His signature bark was only a few degrees quieter indoors.

‘I’m trying to find Warsword Hawthorne,’ she replied with more confidence than she felt. She hadn’t thought how it might look with her returning a warrior’s clothing…

‘Hawthorne doesn’t live in the fortress,’ Esyllt told her, his brow furrowed. ‘What’d you want with him?’

Thea squirmed inwardly, wishing she’d thought things through. ‘I have some of his belongings he loaned me from our journey to Harenth,’ she said. ‘I was hoping to return them.’

Esyllt made a noncommittal noise at the back of his throat. ‘Well, he’s not here. He’s got a cabin on the western foot of the mountains.’

‘Right. Can I leave these things with you then, Sir?’

Esyllt’s arms folded over his chest and he gave her a hard look. ‘I’m no delivery boy, Althea. You’ve got a task, do it yourself.’

‘Yes, Sir. I just… I wasn’t sure if it would be… appropriate?’

‘Appropriate?’ the weapons master scoffed. ‘That ship has sailed. What’s less appropriate? Returning a Warsword’s belongings in a less than timely fashion, or holding onto them for weeks?’

Thea gaped at him.

‘I’d run, not walk, if I was you,’ he prompted.

‘Where —’

‘Do I look like a map? Figure it out yourself.’ And with that, the tetchy weapons master strode in the opposite direction and into a private residence, slamming the door behind him.

‘Gods,’ Thea muttered, shaking her head and peering down at the clothes she still held. She went back to the Great Hall where some of her cohort still lingered and she asked around.

‘Surely someone here has been there? On an errand? To deliver a message?’

‘Nope,’ Lachin mumbled around a spoonful of custard, slurping loudly. ‘He’s private. Doesn’t want the likes of us around him at the best of times, let alone after hours, eh?’

Thea ground her teeth. ‘That doesn’t exactly help me.’

‘I can’t know what I don’t know.’ Lachin shrugged, before his spoon stopped midway to his mouth and he stared at her, brow furrowed. ‘You look different.’

Thea gestured to her hair casually. ‘No braid.’

‘Right…’ Lachin said, seemingly still perplexed, before he remembered himself. He gave another shrug. ‘It’s a good different.’

Thea rolled her eyes. ‘Gee, thanks.’

Just as she was about to give up and retire to the dormitories, she half-collided with Torj in front of Three Furies.