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“My mother always said, ‘the worst-tasting medicine works best.’” When it bubbled and started to smoke, she deactivated the heating enchantment and funneled the mixture into a small bottle. It was finished now, but neither of them moved to pick up the bottle.

“Valtos,” she repeated thoughtfully. “What is it like there?”

“It was good, for a while.”

“What did you do there?”

“I ran a bar for night elves.”

She looked up at him to try to discern whether he was joking. He appeared to be serious.

“They would never allow Varai into the city,” she said, poking the most obvious hole in his claim. “Let alone allow them to run businesses. Not even if they were half human.”

“That’s why we didn’t tell them we were there.”

“A secret bar for Varai, inside the Ardanian capital?” Fascinating.

“There were rooms, too. Like your friend’s inn.” She thought she could hear pride leaking into his voice now.

“Do you not have to have… social skills, or politeness, to run a place like that?” she said with a wry smile.

“You would think so, but no. My customers didn’t have anywhere else to go, so they had to put up with me.” He smiled. He had a ridiculously attractive smile.

“How did you end up here, then?”

His smile disappeared. “Paladins. Obviously. Have you not heard?”

“Heard what?”

“The Paladins rooted out all the Varai in Valtos. That was where it all started. They combed through the entire city. They used Witch-Paladins to find us. They interrogated and imprisoned and killed people. Half the people I knew there are dead.”

Zara was stunned into silence.

Would the Paladins have killed a half-Varai the same way they indiscriminately murdered other Varai? Was it legal to kill anyone with any Varai blood in them?

Half-bloods were no more welcome in Kuda Varai than they were in Ardani. At least full-blooded Varai could return to the forest. Nero would have had nowhere to go where he would not be considered an enemy.

“I am… so sorry,” she said. “What did you do?”

“I escaped the city with a few others. They’re still with me now.”

He said all of this without much emotion. Zara supposed he was used to it all by now. They were simply the facts of his life, and he’d had to find a way to accept and live with them, the same way she’d lived with the tragedies in her own life.

“I’m sorry I upset you,” he said, looking down. “That night in the inn. And the other day in the Varai camp.”

She wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of apologies. “It is all right,” she said, shaking her head. “I was not really frightened. I hope you do not take offense, but you do not have the look of a murderer.”

“I do take offense, actually.”

She raised her eyebrows.

“I’m a cold-blooded killer.”

She laughed. “Yes, I noticed that while you were hand-feeding me when I was sick.”

He smiled again, broader this time. She saw teeth. Her knees went weak.

They were interrupted by the sound of crunching gravel outside. Footsteps. Zara’s eyes widened.