The cafe was upscale and pretentious, exactly the kind of place that served overpriced coffee to people who were desperately pretending the world wasn't actively ending around them. Nox set Serian down carefully in a chair at one of the outdoor tables, making sure her injured ankle was positioned somewhere it wouldn't get bumped, then dropped into the seat across from her with the kind of exhaustion that came from carrying someone for blocks while staying alert for threats.
She shifted uncomfortably in the chair, her recently healed ankle propped up on an adjacent chair where it wouldn't bear any weight. The pain was fading slowly as the divine healing continued its work, but there was still a dull throb with every heartbeat that reminded her exactly how close she came to dying in that alley, how seconds away she was from being captured or killed before Auraelia intervened.
