[When she tucks back in against him and says she doesn't plan to do any more research tomorrow, all thoughts of going hunting flee from his mind. Why would he spend the day chasing through a forest when he can spend any day doing that back in Thorne? He did not begrudge her the time spent sifting through books if it was important to her, but they have so little time to see each other in the flesh as yet that it had still disappointed him. The last time they had met in Nocwich, they'd hardly left their room.

But that had been different, he supposes. There had been three miserable weeks of waiting and not knowing and not seeing her. And then he had come to her, and he had held her, and he had said into her ear, I choose you. Not really a wedding, but as close on it as they were like to see for a while.]

Until we can't. [His expression is pleased, and he bends to kiss her forehead.] The woods can do without me. The whole world can do without the both of us for the day.

If my sister was not in Thorne, I might have left it when I came out of that undercroft. Well, I might have tried. I wanted to run to you; I did not like that we might have each died where we were, underground, with no way to see each other and no one to know. But the new king... he treats us better. Most of us. I can carry my sword in the castle now.[He doesn't sound tremendously impressed, but it's still an improvement.] Yet what he did, it put all of us in danger.