(Alash Vortex POV)
Renn gave his orders before James had reached the bottom of the steps.
Four guards on the lookout, and nobody to touch anything. Two at the lip of the ridge, and nobody to go over it, whatever they thought they heard. A runner to the keep for Sorel and a stretcher. Another to the gate to have it shut behind us.
He said all of it in the same level voice he used for seating plans. Only his hands gave him away. He kept them at his sides, and they were very still, as if he had decided that was the only place they could be trusted.
Elizabeth refused the stretcher when it came. James carried her the whole way back along the ridge path, and she let him, which told me more about her condition than anything Sorel would say later.
I walked behind them with Daphne on my left and Sophie on my right. Nobody spoke.
