Page 99 of Beds and Blades

The girl’s mouth trembled.

“Name?” Flavia asked. “Can you tell me your name?”

It took three tries.

“Tatiana,” she whispered.

“All right, Tatiana,” Flavia said. “Good. That is good. You are coming back with us to Ely.”

Tatiana’s eyes filled with tears. Flavia opened her arms carefully, giving Tatiana the choice. Tatiana stared at her for half a second, then folded forward into her. Flavia caught her and held on. Not tightly enough to trap her. Just firmly enough that Tatiana could fall apart without hitting the ground.

Flavia blinked once, hard. When she spoke again, her voice was still steady, but her eyes had gone bright.

“You are safe,” she said against Tatiana’s hair. “We have you.”

“I thought...” Her voice cracked and vanished.

“I know,” Flavia said.

Tatiana shook her head once, hard, as if Flavia could not possibly know the shape of it.

“I thought no one was coming.”

The words were barely there. Something in my chest hurt.

“We came,” I said.

Tatiana looked at me again.

“We came,” I repeated, because it was the only useful thing I had. “And now we are going to take you home.”

Flavia wrapped her cloak around Tatiana’s shoulders and fastened it at her throat. Tatiana clutched the edges with both hands as if cloth could hold her together if she gripped it hard enough.

“She rides with me,” Flavia said.

Gaius nodded once and helped Tatiana to her feet. Her legs nearly failed under her. Flavia caught her without making a production of it, one arm around her waist, steady and practical.

“Easy,” Flavia said. “I have you.”

Tatiana nodded like she wanted to believe it and did not know how. They got her onto Flavia’s horse. Flavia mounted behind her and kept one arm securely around her middle, cloak and all.

I got back onto Velox with less dignity than anyone deserved to witness. Then we rode for Ely.

Tatiana did not say much after that. She sat rigid in front of Flavia, watching the path ahead and flinching at every sound from the scrub. Flavia murmured to her now and then, low enough that I could not catch all of it.

Tatiana kept looking toward the walls as they rose out of the valley, as if she did not trust them to be real.

I rode in the middle, as instructed, holding the two halves of my glasses in my pocket and squinting at a world that had lost its edges.

At the gate, Flavia took Tatiana straight toward the infirmary, still wrapped around her like a shield.

I headed toward Caen’s tower, because being thrown from a horse, losing my glasses, and getting personally threatened by a vampire seemed to require a magical professional.

***

Caen’s tower was warm and smelled of drying herbs. Bunches of them hung from the rafters, tied with cord and labeled.

Caen took one look at me, pointed to the chair, and waited until I sat.