Mags hardly cared. This time the soup had chunks of chicken meat in it as well as the thick rafts of vegetables, and round white things he couldn’t identify, but which tasted glorious. There was more wonderful cheese, and another apple. More herb tea, this time sweetened with honey that somehow blended with the flavors of the herbs and made them stand out more. Part of him still wanted to be wary, afraid that someone would decide to take all this away from him, but Dallen kept up a steady flow of certainty, and eventually he just gave himself over to the food.

He ate until he couldn’t eat any more, and he intended to go back to his book again. But somehow he found himself in that room full of beds again, and thought he would lie down for just a little bit.

And that decision was the last thing he remembered before sleep claimed him.

It seemed only a moment later that he woke to Dallen’s prodding and the sound of a bell again. Outside the windows, the sun was setting. Inside, the sounds from down the hall made him realize that the Guardsmen were heading in the direction of the mess hall. And once again, his stomach growled, telling him in no uncertain terms that it was empty, it had gotten used to being full, and it wanted to be that way again, now.

He spent the next several days in the same way; getting fed, sleeping a very great deal, slowly becoming more and more facile at reading books, absorbing what was in the books that Dallen selected for him.

If he didn’t speak much, it was because he spent most of his time watching everything. From time to time, with a vaguely worried look on his face, Herald Jakyr would seek him out in the book room or at meals and ask him some pointed question or other. Mags’ answers must have satisfied him, for the Herald would get a relieved look on his face and go off about his business.

That business took him away from the Guard Post more often than not. Mags didn’t mind; while he was gone, the Guardsmen generally let him poke around as much as he cared to as long as he was not underfoot.