Chapter Five – The Waystation

Stone walls. One room. A fireplace that worked. A door with an iron latch. Nothing else.

No bed. Just the floor and the fire's warmth and the sound of wind trying to find gaps in the stone.

Edgar built the fire with the quick competence he seemed to bring to everything, and she checked the door's latch without asking herself why she was bothering, because she knew why. The riders. The unknown colors. The fact that someone other than Caen knew which road they were on.

"They weren't random," she said.

"No." He sat back from the fire. "Someone knew the route."

"Which means someone told them."

"Or they've been watching the road. Waiting." He was still frowning. "There are people who would want to know Caen was expecting a delivery."

"Delivery." She kept her voice neutral. "Right."

He looked at her. "I'm sorry. That was–"

"It's accurate. Don't apologize for accuracy."

He nodded. Looked at the fire.

She sat across from it. The warmth hit her like something physical – her body had been cold and pretending not to be cold all day, and the fire's honesty was almost embarrassing.

"Tell me something true," she said. "An actual something."

He looked up.

"Last night you said something small," she said. "That you hated this road. I want something real."

He was quiet for long enough that she thought he was going to deflect again.

"I requested this assignment," he said.

She stared at him.

"What?"

"When Caen was looking for someone to retrieve you– after the second time – I requested it. Specifically." He was looking at the fire. Not at her. "I don't usually do that."

"Why?" Her voice was very even.

"Because the other men he was considering–" He stopped. "They wouldn't have been–" Another stop. "I told myself it was to make sure it was done cleanly. Without– without cruelty. The other candidates were not men I trusted to be–"

"Humane?" she offered.

"Yes."

She looked at him for a long moment. The fire between them. His face half in shadow.

"That's either the most selfless thing I've ever heard," she said, "or the most convenient story."

"I know how it sounds."

"Do you? Because from where I'm sitting, it sounds like you chose to be the one to deliver me to a man you just admitted you don't like, because that made you feel better about it."

His jaw tightened. Just slightly.

"Yes," he said. "That's exactly what it was."

The honesty landed like a stone. She'd expected a defense. A counter-argument. Not confirmation.

"Was that true?" she said. "About the other men."

"Yes."

"So I should be grateful?"

"No." Immediately. Firm. "You shouldn't be grateful for anything about this. I'm not asking you to be."

"Then what are you asking?"

He looked at her then. Really looked, with none of the careful management he'd been wearing since the first moment.

"Nothing," he said. "I just – I wanted you to know. That's all."

The fire cracked. The wind pushed at the walls.

She sat with it for a long moment. All of it. The requesting of the assignment. The confirmation. The way he'd said it – not with guilt, exactly, but with the particular weight of someone who's been honest with themselves about something unpleasant and has stopped looking for the prettier version.

"Your turn," he said, after a while. "Something true."

She looked at the fire.

"I'm not afraid of Caen," she said. "I want to be clear about that. I'm furious. I've been furious since the letter arrived six months ago, and I haven't been able to put it down, it just sits inside me like something with heat. But I'm not afraid." A breath. "I'm afraid of becoming someone who stops being furious. Someone who accepts it. I'm afraid of what happens to a person when they run out of something to fight against."

Edgar was quiet for a long time.

"You won't," he said finally.

"You don't know that."

"No." He looked at her. "But I know what it looks like when someone's already decided."

She held his gaze. Longer than she meant to.

"You can't keep doing it," she said. "Saying things like that."

"Like what?"

"Like you're on my side."

Something crossed his face. Quick. Almost gone before she could name it.

"Get some sleep," he said. "I'll watch."

"Edgar–"

"Sleep, Ysolde."

She lay down on the hard floor with her back to the fire and her face to the wall and told herself she was going to plan the fourth attempt and instead fell asleep almost immediately, which was its own kind of betrayal.

She woke an hour later to the sound of him moving – not to the door, not to the window. He'd taken off his coat and placed it over her while she slept. He was sitting again, by the fire, in his shirt in the cold room, and he was looking at something in his hands – small and flat, a piece of paper or card – with an expression she'd never seen on him before. Something that looked like grief. Something old.

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