(Alash Vortex POV)
I should have slept.
The carriage was moving, my feet were up, Dream Haven was under my head, and nobody had asked me to be responsible for anything since the waystation. Every condition I have ever needed for sleep was in place. I lay there with my eyes shut and stayed awake anyway.
The Hermit had looked at the five of us as if we were a lock he had already started to pick.
He had known our answers had holes in them. He had said so, more or less, to Renn's face. And then he had asked me about his seals.
I knew why the five of us were unusual, or the shape of it. I knew it the way you know where a bruise is: without looking, and without wanting to press it. I knew why the creature had looked at our chests, or I was as sure as I could be. I knew what the gold was made of, roughly, and what it had been connecting.
