Arwen's POV
I don't move toward her immediately.
This is the instinct that has kept me functional through the last six weeks, the pause before the step, the breath before the commitment. I stand in the center of the Blackthorne crest inlaid in the floor and I look at this woman and I let what I am seeing settle into something I can actually hold before I try to respond to it.
She is patient with this. She has the patience of something that has been waiting long enough that a few more seconds mean nothing.
"Sit down," she says. "There is a chair to your left. It has been there for a long time in case someone came."
I find the chair. It is simple, wooden, the same dark age as everything else in this room. I sit. She watches me settle with an expression that is not quite warm and not qui
