Annie's POV:
The hall was empty.
The elders had filed out. The envoy's party was gone. The trays were cleared. The last of the daylight came through the high windows. The room had gone from loud to still—the way a room did when the shouting was done.
I stood at the serving table with the last of the dishes in my hands. Alexander stood at the head of the table where he had stood all day. I had cleared the trays slowly, hoping to be gone before the hall emptied. It hadn't worked. He had stayed. I had stayed. Now the quiet between us was the kind that had to be filled with something.
"The best Tracker Thornwood ever had," he said to the wood. "You were a maid in my house for five years. I never heard a word of this."
"No one heard it." I set the dish down. "I never told anyone."
"Why?"
