The streets were quieter on the way back.
Lor walked with his hands in his pockets, the night air cool against his face after the warmth of Kuri's house.
Most of the lamps along the residential lanes had already been turned down for the evening.
The cobblestones still held a faint dampness from the earlier drizzle, and every few steps his boots made a soft, wet sound that echoed a little too clearly in the empty stretch between houses.
He was late.
He had told his mother that he would be home soon.
That had been before the dungeon, before the tavern, before the alley, before the long stretch of theory and the payment that followed.
Time had slipped.
The thought of his mother waiting, maybe glancing at the door more than once, sat in the back of his mind with a small, familiar weight.
He picked up his pace without quite realizing it.
The information about Ameth turned over quietly while he walked.
Childhood. Mother's death. Orphanage.
