Leto cocks her head at the boy’s greeting, looks between him and her fairy. This one is odd, she whispers into Alethea’s mind, but the little lady is too distracted to hear. The fingers of her left hand, still twined with the bars of the gate, tighten until the knuckles are white. She turns from Thoth back to this Alistair, eyes wide with worry, and sympathy, and something new...suspicion. The hard, cold feeling brings some articulation back to her numb voice.
“Forgive my rudeness,” she says softly, her voice still husky from disuse, as if she’d been asleep a long time. “But in light of the recent attack, you’ll have to tell someone how you were injured. Otherwise, how are we to know you aren’t a Menekhtite that somehow escaped the battle?” There was an apology in her eyes, but the set of her mouth as she murmured the word Menekhtite was sharp, bitter. The word came out like a poison. But what if he was? If Alistair had been among the invaders on the beach, would she deny him treatment...would she send him away? Her throat aches with memory and conflict; she turns back toward Thoth, her hand slipping from the gate.
“You’re right. And no...I have no magic.” The last is uttered without any shame, any emotion at all, though perhaps it should be shameful among all these children with their myriad gifts. She’d heard rumors of Thoth’s abilities, and has no way to tell fable from fact. Across the courtyard, the shuffle of armored legs echoes over cobblestones, drawing nearer. “We won’t have long to wait. Will you come? I don’t want to be alone with him if...if he is a Manekhtite. But I don’t want to send him off by himself like a prisoner, in case he isn’t...” She smiles weakly, embarrassed to be asking anything of the younger boy – she is fifteen, after all, and shouldn’t be relying on a twelve-year-old for comfort – but the circumstances have made her feel very, very young. The guards come into view, hurrying but not running. Remembering herself, Alethea turns back to the injured boy.
“Sorry. I’m Alethea. We’ll help you, Alistair, but we have to be...cautious, these days. Nobody will hurt you, and the healers in the castle infirmary should have no trouble with that wound...” Her smile, meant to encourage, is tight. The guards – four of them – are now surrounding them, opening the gate with strong, adult arms. Their scabbards and quivers clink against their mail. One offers a hand to Alistair, and then they are moving in a slow march across the castle grounds, Alethea pacing just outside the ring of armor with her hand curled gently in Leto’s ruff, like a child.
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