Chapter 375 --375
The guard understood. He was young and had the quality she had selected for — the practical gentleness that was different from softness, the capability that did not need to announce itself. He moved to Samuel and lifted him with the care of someone doing something that required care, the wheelchair folded by Fen in the same moment without a word exchanged, the whole thing managed quietly and correctly.
Samuel stirred slightly when he was lifted — the half-waking of deep sleep disrupted. He made a sound.
"It’s fine," Elara said, from where she was sitting. She did not move toward him. She kept her voice even and present. "You’re going to your room."
He settled without fully waking.
The guard carried him out. Fen took the wheelchair. The door closed.
The table was quiet for a moment.
"He trusts you," Mahir said.
She looked at him.
"The sound you made," Mahir said. "When he stirred. He heard it and he settled." He paused. "That is not a small thing."
She looked at the door.
"No," she said. "It isn’t."
Demerti was looking at the bottle with the expression of a man who had something to say and was deciding whether the evening had reached the temperature for it. She watched him decide yes.