They had already spent a week in Ithur’s Fourth Ring townhouse, and Qaen felt as if he was constantly walking on eggshells. Iara was barely around, and her mood was increasingly labile. Where she went each day and night, he didn’t know; he had tried following her on one occasion, but was quickly forced to give it up when he saw her find an abandoned alleyway and open a portal. On the off chance he did see her, she was either as happy-go-lucky as the her he understood her to be, or as cold as the ice queen he had only seen snippets of.
He spent more time bonding with Ithur than he did serving Riese and Iara combined, and they had indeed bonded, surprisingly — he frequently found himself waking up spread out over one of Ithur’s long seats.
Qaen had originally wanted to ask Iara for the fav
