Wren’s POV
Maren arrives on the third day after the council, and she brings Nell with her in a cart because Nell refused to be left behind, and apparently that argument lasted six hours and Isen lost it.
They put Nell in a room with a window. She sits up in it wrapped in three blankets and watches the yard like somebody at the theatre.
“Eleven years of ceiling,” she says, when I bring her food. “You’ve no idea. There’s a boy out there who cannot mount a horse. I’ve watched him fail at it four times. It’s the best thing I have ever seen.”
“You should be asleep.”
“I’ve slept.”
I sit down on the end of the bed, which she likes, and she puts her hand out for mine, which is a thing she does now without asking. It hums. That’s the only way I can describe it. Whatever’s in her and whatever’
