Vespera Morcant woke to the sound of a stamp striking paper.
She lay on a narrow treatment cot inside the Arkwright border lodge, a gray blanket over her waist. Her clinic bag sat beneath the nearest chair.
Across the room, an officer placed another stamped page in a metal tray.
The lodge healer removed a cooling strip from Vespera’s neck.
“You have been awake for thirty seconds,” Sable Wythe said from the foot of the cot. “Do not start negotiating.”
“I was looking.”
“You negotiate with your face.”
The officer picked up a blank entry form. “I need the guest’s full name.”
Vespera turned toward him.
The movement sent a pulse through her skull. Her wet clothes had been replaced with a lodge shirt and trousers. Someone had cleaned the mud from her hands without cutting her nails.
She
