Wren startled awake to late afternoon sunlight. She groaned at the pounding in her head, the hunger twisting her stomach into knots. On her nightstand, cold tea and cold fish waited for her beside a note from Hannah, informing her she’d brought Hal his meals for today.

That news filled her with dread. She shouldn’t let anyone tend to him until she determined whether his food was laced with poison. Just how long had she been asleep? She groped for the drawer and rummaged for her pocket watch.

Five o’clock.

She hadn’t overexerted herself so thoroughly since her earliest days as an apprentice.

Wren dragged herself out of bed to get ready. She made quick work of it, devouring her lunch without relish and lacing herself into a warm flannel gown. Then, she staggered across the hall to find Hal reading in bed. He was clearly in the throes of a fever, judging by the sweat beading his temples and the covers cast halfway across the room. Still, he sat upright with grim determination.

“Good to see you’re still alive,” she said as she took her seat in the bedside chair.

Hal did not glance up from his book.

“You should lie down.”

“Maybe.”

“Definitely.”

He sighed through the fluid in his lungs, a rattling sound. “I’ve lain down for weeks. I’m bored.”

She could understand that. Out of curiosity, she tilted her head to steal a look at the title. A History of Warfare, written by a Danubian scholar she vaguely recognized.

“That’s your idea of fun?” she said skeptically.

“The selection here is admittedly limited, but Danu’s history does interest me. I should know more of it than I do.”

She waited for him to expound, but that was apparently all he had to say on the matter. “You say that as though it’s an obligation.”

“Isn’t it?” This time, he fixed her with that eerily intent stare.

“Depends.” Wren crossed her arms. “What, you feel like you need to know the bare minimum about the people you plan to govern by force? How cultured of you.”

He looked a little slighted. “No, that’s not my intention.”

“Well, there’s not much to it, anyway,” she muttered. “War and suffering. Martyrdom. Perhaps some coal mining. Not that you need to be told about any of that.”

“I suppose not.” He flipped a page casually, as if he’d not registered her insult. “I just want to know your account of what was taken from you. Which cities, which resources, how many casualties.”