"Loyalty is a weapon. Point it carefully."
***
The candles in Room 247 had burned down to stubs. Wax pooled on the wooden desk like it was trying to escape. Shadows moved across the stone walls, and my modest chamber looked less like a dormitory and more like the lair of someone planning crimes.
Which, fair.
Parchments covered nearly every surface. Diagrams. Notes. The kind of obsessive documentation that would make any investigating officer very concerned about my mental state.
Lyra moved through the space like she was performing some kind of sacred ritual. Each fold of fabric deliberate. Each motion careful. She'd spread my sparring clothes across the narrow bed. Plain linen shirt with fraying cuffs. Reinforced leather jerkin worn soft at the edges. Simple breeches faded from too many washings.
Nothing that would suggest House Leone had money. Because we didn't.
