Bramwell's POV
She came to the fortress.
I don't think anyone recognized her. She came in the gray hour before the market opened, dressed like a trader, her hood up, smelling like someone who had thought carefully about what not to smell like. She gave the gate guard a name I didn't recognize and a reason I would have to ask about later.
My guard captain found me in the records room and said simply: "Someone to see you. Southern gate. She said to tell you the word is fennel."
I was at the southern gate in four minutes.
She was waiting in the small receiving yard, arms folded, watching the gate guards with the attention of someone memorizing a weakness. When I arrived, she turned, and the look on her face was the one I was beginning to recognize — not hostility but assessment. A look t
