Yuki's POV
I only wanted to ask Lyra one thing.
That's all. Just one thing. Whether she could braid my hair before the dinner for the soldiers started.
Back at the Packhouse, when I was a little smaller, she braided it once. Everyone said the two of us looked so pretty, exactly alike, like nesting dolls.
I found her in the big tent full of maps, talking with some officers. I waited by the entrance the way you're supposed to, and I didn't interrupt them. I know the rule — you have to wait until a grown-up looks at you, and then you're allowed to speak.
She did look at me.
But she didn't smile the way she used to at the house. She even waved at me a little impatiently, quick, the way you'd swat at a moth flinging itself at a lightbulb. Then, in that soft, lovely voice that carried clea
