“Oh, we’re not finished yet,” Cyrus said. He dashed a few steps ahead and attempted to halt Arn’s path. “You’re not entering our safe house until you give me an explanation, and one I deem sufficient.”

Of course, Arn’s attempt at kindness was rebuked immediately. He needed to stop being surprised by that.

“Big orders from a tiny man,” Arn said, and he blasted right past Cyrus, easily shouldering him out of the way. But while he didn’t mind bossing around the princeling, the younger Ahlai sister blocking the doorway was another matter.

“And where have you two charming fellows been off to?” Mari asked. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her pleasant voice not matching the cold, calm look on her face.

“Nothing important,” Arn said, trying to brush aside this thoroughly unwelcome prying into his past life.

“Nothing important?” She lifted an eyebrow. “Warning bells have been ringing across half the city, most certainly of your own doing, and you left without even a word of explanation. I sure hope you didn’t risk your lives and make me worry all for ‘nothing important.’”

Arn rubbed at the back of his head and glanced aside. All the gods and goddesses help him, he towered over this woman, yet he feared to meet her gaze. Why? Was it because he knew who she truly was, what she could become as the Lioness?

“He forgot something at the Twin Sanctuary,” Cyrus oh-so-helpfully explained. “As to what, he refuses to say.”

Now with Mari’s backing, Vagrant seemed brave enough to block his way once more. Arn noted the way his hands lingered near his swords. Surely he wouldn’t draw them… would he? It was just a charm, a stupid charm; why were they so insistent on knowing what it was?

“Look, I didn’t ask you to come, and you saw how easily we mopped up the guards that remained,” Arn argued. “Everything was fine. I dropped something, and that could be incriminating, yeah? So I went and got it. Why are you making such a big thing out of this? And who are you to even block me from entering Thorda’s home? I don’t remember you recruiting me.”

Cyrus’s hands tightened around the sword hilts.

“Despite your bluster, you put your life at risk to retrieve it. You weren’t even planning on telling anyone you were going back for it, either. What if you were captured? What if you were interrogated, putting all our identities and plans at risk?”