Soren helped her back into her seat, his arm remaining firmly around her shoulders. He wasn't looking at the maps anymore. He was looking at her face with the deep, narrow suspicion of a man who had just watched three people perform a perfectly synchronized dance around a secret.
What is she not telling me? he thought. He could feel the tension in her, the way she wouldn't meet his eyes.
"Are you alright?" he asked, his voice low, for her alone.
"I'm fine," she whispered, the lie tasting like copper.
"You keep saying that," he muttered, his jaw tightening. "And you keep falling over. We are going to have a very long conversation about the definition of 'fine' later."
They spent another hour circling the problem, but they reached a wall that logic could not climb.
"There are too many gaps," Aldwin finally said, leaning back and rubbing his eyes.
