Then Jane moved, crossing the courtyard at a speed that communicated nothing had mattered in the past two weeks more than this moment, and she did what she had done the first time she had come through the domain gate, she threw herself at him before he had finished processing that she was coming.
He caught her.
She held on with the force of someone who had been worried for fourteen days and was expressing everything about those fourteen days in the physical fact of having her arms around him.
He held her back and said nothing and let her have the moment.
Magnar, with the unconcerned ease of a familiar who did not feel left out by this exchange, pushed his large head against Neil's leg from the side.
Neil reached down without releasing Jane and put his hand on Magnar's head briefly.
After a moment Jane stepped back, aware of the full courtyard around her and the several people in it who had observed the exchange with varying degrees of discretion.
