Even with Clara encouraging me to go talk to Aurion, I still avoided him for most of the morning. It was easy enough to do. I just went to visit the casteless I had helped cure of poison. It was fantastic to see them all awake and alert. I got to talk to each of them as they thanked me. I brushed it off every time, but getting to talk to them was the best thanks I could get.
Then at lunch, I went out to the garden and walked around. If I spent most of it too far in for anyone to see, that was probably just coincidental.
I would have made it through dinner, too, if Clara hadn’t caught on to what I was doing and forced me to go to dinner. I tried to convince her to come with me, but she wasn’t having any of it. So, with a new dress that had arrived at my door on, and my hair actually done,
