The courtyard behind the embassy villa sat still in the midafternoon heat, the pale stone baking under Crestmar's high sun. Wind whispered through the shadecloths above the colonnade, carrying voices from the market in distant bursts, bells, merchants, boots, but none of it touched this place. The garden had been designed to absorb noise, not carry it. Even the water in the low pool barely stirred.
Arthur preferred it that way.
He and Melite had been walking the edge of Crestmar's Wharf, the way they often did when silence spoke more than talk. But when Arthur saw Lady Zephyra, cloaked and alone near the embassy garden, he slowed. Then stopped.
"Would you cast a hush ring?" He asked, voice low, not quite distant, not quite close.
Melite didn't press. She only glanced once toward where his gaze had landed, then nodded. No questions. No sideways smiles. Just a short touch to her mageroot and a quiet spell laid like a breath over stone.
Not protection.
Intimacy.
