“Yes.”
She exhales a humorless breath. “At least you’re honest about being infuriating.”
I look down at the map before my mouth can do something unwise. Like soften.
“There are watchers,” I say.
The humor leaves her face. Not fear. Calculation.
“Whose?”
“I do not know.”
“That’s becoming a pattern,” she says.
“Yes.”
Her fingers press against the slate. “Off-worlders?”
I do not answer quickly because she deserves truth. Truth is not the same as certainty.
“The one called Kaelreth was hunted,” I say. “Those who hunted him may still be searching. They may not know this City. They may know only that those who helped him came here. They may know more than that.”
Sera’s throat moves. The hunger scent sharpens under fear.
“Rosalind knows.”
“She suspects.”
“Adran?” she asks.
“He suspects more than he says.”
“That’s comforting.”
“Hmm. It was not meant to be.”
She gives me a look that says she might throw a slate at my head if it would not count as waste. Good. Anger again. Useful fire. She bends over the map.
“Lower east exit comes out under a broken retaining arch. Shade until early light. After that, exposed for twenty-seven breaths before the first wall shadow.”
“Twenty-seven?”
“Twenty-nine if you’re slow. Seventeen if you’re stupid.”
“Which are you?”
Her eyes flick up. “Hungry.”
The answer is too honest. It lands between us before she can call it back. Her mouth closes. Mine does too. For one breath, the room is nothing but that word. Hungry. Not fine. Not functional. Not useful. Hungry.
Her face hardens, as if she can seal the truth back behind her teeth. Too late. I reach into the pouch at my belt and remove the ration Adran sent. Dried meat. A small root. Seed mash wrapped in leaf. Something in her expression closes at the sight.
“No.”
I set it on the table between us.
“Yes.”
