Moria left Gavril there, reading Ashyn’s note. She got as far as the street before he came after her.

“Where are you running?” he said, striding up beside her.

“To find my sister, obviously. Find her, find the children, warn someone. That’s the plan, isn’t it?”

He swung in front of her. “It’s not a half day’s jaunt, Keeper. Night has fallen. It will be just as dark until morning, so there’s little point in rushing. We’ll need more lantern oil, fire-starter, warmer clothes. . . . My cloak is in the barracks and you need yours. If you can recall where you dropped it.”

“I know exactly where I dropped it. At home, where it lies in my dead father’s hand. It’s still there, I’m sure. Where he tried to kill me and I had to kill him. I will freeze before I go back for that cloak.”

As she spoke, the annoyance fell from his face and by the time she finished, she saw . . .

Empathy. Shared pain and understanding and contrition. She saw that and she turned away.

“I’ll find something at the barracks,” she said.

“Can you go into your father’s shop?” His voice was low, the undertone of compassion making her anxious, and she wanted to brush it off. Make him angry again.

You fault him for being unkind in your grief, and you fault him for being kind. What do you want, Moria?

“If you don’t feel you can go into his shop, I will,” he said. “But that is the best place to find supplies.”

She answered by veering in that direction.

Gavril suggested she tell him what she needed from the shop. His tone said he would see it as no sign of weakness if she stayed out. She still saw weakness in the choice. Moreover she saw a lack of respect for her father.

He’d been proud of his shop. Proud to be a merchant. The empire would have let him take on a higher-ranking position in Edgewood. He was the father of the Keeper and the Seeker. He ought not tend shop. Yet he did, and while Moria knew he enjoyed his profession, it was also a quiet rebellion. The empire had cost him his wife and could have cost him his children. Now they’d “allow” him to rise from his caste-bound occupation? No, they would not. He wouldn’t risk rebelling loudly, as Moria would, but he did so with a quiet resolve that seemed so much braver. She would honor that bravery by going into his shop for the last time.

The mental wall stayed up as she went in, and she was glad. It let her look around the familiar tables and shelves, inhale the familiar scents, and commit it all to memory. She started gathering everything they’d need along with packs to put it in.