FOURTEEN
Alden took a step and winced at the pain.
“You’re hurt,” Mercy said, hurriedly picking her way over the debris. She paused to glare for a moment at the piece of railing that had fallen into the room, holding out her hands to help him. “You said you weren’t, but you are. Dammit, Alden!”
“I’m not injured badly. My knee is a bit sore, but to be honest, it was that way after my session with Vandal today.”
“Go ahead and lean on me,” Mercy told him, and almost an hour after falling into the passage, Alden stumbled out of it, sweating, covered in dirt, dust, and minute shards of the glass that had come down with the railing, and more grateful for being alive and able to kiss Mercy than he ever recalled.
“You know what this means,” he said a short while later, sitting in the kitchen
