Arwen's POV
Nobody moves immediately.
That is the specific quality of the moment Cole reaches the bottom of the stairs and says I won't let you die for this. The room absorbs it the way the room has absorbed everything tonight, with the patience of a space that has been holding large things for two hundred years and has not yet found anything too heavy.
Then Draven shifts his weight slightly and Cole sees it and his eyes move between us and the old woman and the room itself and the calculation running behind his eyes is fast and visible and ends somewhere that tightens his jaw.
"How long have you been listening," I say.
"Since the stairs," he says. "I heard the last part. The anchor. The way back not being guaranteed." His eyes come back to mine. "That's enough."
"Cole—"
"No." He sa
