“Helga?”

She looked to him. “Yes, that’s her name.”

“Yes,” he confirmed unnecessarily. “What about her?”

Her face softened even as her gait stayed steady and her eyes remained on him.

“She is suffering, True. I’ve seen her twice today. It’s clear she cared deeply for your mother. I know you are busy, and grieve yourself, but if you could find some time to have a word with her?”

Helga did care about his mother. As much as anyone could be with Mercy, Helga and she were thick as thieves.

He should have thought of her earlier.

“I will speak to her tomorrow,” he said as they made the landing of their chambers.

“I knew you would,” she murmured.

He walked them through the doors and closed them behind him.

“Did you learn anything during the interrogations?” she asked, not heading to her dressing room, instead standing before a sofa and watching him.

Ah, his fierce Farah.

“Darling, you took an arrow today,” he reminded her.

“I know, but—”

“It would please me greatly if you would finally get some rest.”

“I would rest easier if I knew those who took your mother received the treatment they deserved and will lead us to stop anything more happening.”

He knew, in that moment, there would be times in their marriage where he would wish his wife was far less intelligent.

Fortunately, there would be vastly more times when he was grateful that she was so wise.

Thus, he settled in and shared, “Every one of them is Dellish.” He then shook his head. “But they are most curious. It is clear they all embarked on their mission fully aware they would be captured, interrogated, and in the end, executed. I’ve never known a man, one who is not a trained spy, who enters a mission with this knowledge and does it willingly.”

“This is most disturbing,” she whispered.

“It is,” he agreed. “But there is a dichotomy that might work in our favor. You see, at first, they did what it was clear they were told to do. What the men who were tortured by Mars and his Trusted in the necropolis were told to do. Say nothing. Except, in the case of the men at the Keep, the occasional ‘long live The Rising.’”

“How does that work in our favor?”

True moved to her and carefully took her in his arms.

When he had her where he very much liked her, he explained.

“It works in our favor for they are not trained spies. They are not even trained soldiers. I think if Mars spent more time at it in Fire City, we would have learned more. As we had more prisoners, and more time, and some watched what was done to others and could only think the same or worse would be done to them, we learned that you nor I were the targets. Only Mother was. And this was why so many arrows went so many places. Ten arrows missed entirely. And what hit you, Bram, Florian, Alfie were not intended for those targets.”