Their internal voices overlapped, tangled, two women thinking the same thoughts in different registers — Sera's sharp and analytical, Lira's soft and panicked.
"Stay," he said. "Please. Just while I bathe. Then we will talk about what happens next."
The word 'please' landed on them like a warm hand. He was a lord, and he was asking. Not commanding — asking. The distinction mattered. It mattered so much that neither sister thought to question why a lord would say 'please' to two merchant's daughters, because the alternative — leaving, alone, into a night full of goblins — was unthinkable.
They stayed.
Sera stood by the wall, her arms crossed over her torn dress, her chin up, her eyes fixed on a point above Caelum's head with the rigid discipline of a woman who was determined not to look down. Lira sat on the small bench near the boiler, her hands in her lap, her gaze on her own fidgeting fingers.
