“I didn't think I could get through that dinner.'

'What do you mean?' He'd been rather... calm. Contained.

'Your sisters mean well, or one of them does. But seeing them, sitting at that table... I hadn't realised it would hit me as strongly. How young you were. How they didn't protect you.'

'I managed just fine.'

'We owe them our gratitude for letting us use this house,' he said quietly, 'but it will be a long while yet before I can look at your sisters without wanting to roar at them.'

'A part of me feels the same way,' I admitted, nestling down into the blankets. 'But if I hadn't gone into those woods, if they hadn't let me go out there alone... You would still be enslaved. And perhaps Amarantha would now be readying her forces to wipe out these lands.”