Gingerly, Treila untangles their legs that last little bit and sits up on one of the steps. She’s wedged between him and the wall, and can see only a sliver of the throne room, but she watches it instead of him. She gives him a moment to pull himself back together, get his breathing under control.

Just like when the creature in the dark grew angry that she’d learned the rules of the game elsewhere, the Loving Saint’s knee-jerk response tells her more than any words. These two predators are territorial, and they don’t like knowing they aren’t alone in this little fiefdom.

She ponders her next question, turns it over like a coin across her knuckles. The humid night air has resolved around her into summer, certainly, so there’s no point in mentioning that she knows it’s autumn beyond the walls. But if time does not flow at the same rate here as it does in the world at large, she might have been gone for—who knows?

“What did I miss?” Treila settles on. It’s just coy enough that he’ll enjoy it.

He huffs something that might be a laugh. He’s on his hands and knees beside her, and he prowls a step up, then glances back over his shoulder to her. “The wizard in the tower is learning how to walk the tightrope.”

That can mean nothing good. But she hasn’t toppled yet. That’s something.

Treila wriggles onto her hip. The stairs aren’t particularly wide. It’s a long fall down. He’s on the outside; she could push him. She wonders if he would fall, and if he did, if it would matter. “How many feasts have gone by without me?”

“It never really ends,” he replies. “But don’t you want to know about your knight, too?”

“She isn’t mine,” Treila says, too quickly. She feels exposed after.

He just grins. “She’s been on the prowl,” he tells her. “Looking for answers. Looking for something to fight. Looking, I think, for her sword.”

His gaze drifts to the doorway, and Treila’s follows. She creeps forward, enough that she can see somebody moving in the gloom. Not Ser Voyne, though. No, whoever it is has a shorn head, and is unsteady on her feet. Treila can hear her rasping, roughshod breathing.

The prioress, she realizes, weak and staggering.

And then there is a laugh, sliding through the humming of her missing ear, and a wash of sunlight. The Constant Lady steps into the throne room. Treila strains to see more.

But the Loving Saint catches hold of her arm and pulls her back. “It’s not safe in there,” he murmurs, body warm against her back. “Better to watch the shadow play.”