The Traitor Revealed

Fenn had the door open before Isolde’s knuckles finished a second knock. He pulled her inside by the sleeve with a strength she hadn’t expected from a man who flinched at his own shadow. He shut it again behind her with both hands, as though the wood itself might not be enough.

“You came alone.” He said it like a man confirming a fact he badly needed confirmed. Only then did he seem to register the shape of her properly — road dust still on her cloak, her hair come loose from the ride. “Good. Good. I wasn’t certain you’d manage it, given the hour I asked for.”

“I came as fast as a horse would carry me, Osric, which tells you how seriously I took your message.” She looked past him at the trunk, still half-packed, still sitting in its corner exactly as it had the last time she’d…