"You can ask, if you want."
Valeria hadn't realized the question was so visible.
She stopped herself and turned to face the courtyard rather than finding another excuse to inspect her sword. Jesse had crossed half the distance between them, with none of the readiness she had carried before leaving the practice hall.
That, more than the words, was the part Valeria couldn't immediately place.
She reached for something to call it. Nothing fit, only the sense that Jesse was telling her something she couldn't yet read.
"Ask what?"
"Nothing."
Jesse's mouth curved. A near-laugh escaped her, quiet and short, though it never reached her eyes. What remained there had a thin, hard edge that hadn't been present when she led Lucavion through the side entrance.
Jesse had come back changed.
Valeria didn't need banquets and court dinners to read that much. She would have caught it across a battlefield.
