He did not speak for a minute. ‘If not with me, then with whom? Blackmane? The man you took an arrow for?’

She looked away on an exhale. ‘I am not talking about him with you.’

Hodge leaned forwards. ‘First, I had the torture of waiting to find out if you were alive. Then I had the torture of imagining you with him. I had to write to the warden in Chadora to put myself out of my misery.’ He straightened. ‘Though learning the two of you were apart offered little comfort, because I know first-hand that an absent person can still occupy the entirety of one’s mind.’ He reached for his cup, tapping his finger on the stem. ‘What was it about him? His strong physique and handsome face? Or was it the fact that he read a book once?’

She shook her head and went to stand. ‘I think this dinner is over.’

He slammed his fist against the table, making everything atop it rattle. ‘Months I have waited to have this conversation. The very least you can do is listen.’

She lowered herself back into the chair and stared at him. ‘Let me go home.’

‘To him?’

She shook her head, exhausted.

‘To the wastelands? Every comfort you can dream up is right here in this castle.’

She wet her lips. ‘You think this dinner is comfortable? You think this conversation, these questions, are comfortable?’ She began pulling pins out of her hair. ‘I assure you none of this is comfortable.’

He stared into his cup. ‘We cannot fix what is broken in a few nights.’

She slammed the hairpins down onto the table. ‘You are not listening to me. I do not want to fix this.’

He rose abruptly, chair scraping so loudly that Isabel flinched. He leaned across the table, fingertips pressing into it. She thought he might strike her, but instead, he marched over to the door, yanked it open, and said to the guard outside, ‘Lady Isabel is ready to return to her quarters.’

She took the exit while it was on offer and fled the room.

Chapter 37

CHAPTER 37

Blackmane and Tolly watched the castle beneath a setting sun from the safety of the trees. Hodge must have been expecting company, because every hour, two guards would ride out and do a lap of the tree line.

‘I think we need to have a little chat with one of the guards,’ Blackmane said when the bridge lowered again.

‘Only one?’ Tolly asked.