The settlement was called Gallet and it had forty people and a trading post and a water well and a man named Ferris who came out of the storage house when they walked in and said Aelara's name in the warm surprised voice of someone who had not expected to see a person and was genuinely glad to see them.
He took her hands. Borderlands greeting, the two-handed kind that was for people who had worked the same routes and been through the same specific kind of difficult together. He was laughing a little. He said: "Three years.
I thought you were—" He stopped. He looked at her properly. "You look well."
She said: "Ferris." Warm. Real. She squeezed his hands.
Vaelor was standing two feet behind her.
Ferris looked at Vaelor. Then at the twins. Then at the rest of the group in a quick assessment that took about four seconds. He was a borderlands man and he understood the shape of a situation without needing everything spelled out.
"Come in," he said. "I'll get water started."
— — —
