(Alash Vortex POV)
Elizabeth's room was at the end of our corridor, with a window over the courtyard and a chair beside the bed that someone had clearly been sleeping in. I could guess who.
She was sitting up against her pillows. Her face was arranged. She looked better than she had in the sitting room two nights ago, and worse than she wanted to.
"Sit down," she said. "And close the door, please. I'd rather this wasn't a corridor conversation."
I sat. I didn't bring Dream Haven. It had seemed wrong, somehow, to arrive at a conversation about consent carrying a pillow.
Elizabeth didn't waste time. She never does, and she had evidently been arranging this for a while.
"On the ridge," she said, "you told me four things before I said yes."
She counted them off on the fingers of her good hand.
