Her thumbnail runs along his hand, and she can feel those scarred ridges carved up and down his fingers and knuckles, that map of old injuries. “You are, admittedly, very good with that Fade shield, so clearly he must have been doing a good job with the practice,” Stephen says, matching that warm tone bleeding into her voice. Letting her think of better, kinder things than the death itself. “I’m grateful.”

It had come in handy on the field at Starkhaven, blocking blows from charging Tevene riders, and he’s certain it must have tipped the scales for Gwenaëlle’s safety at other times, other places. But even more importantly than those survival skills —

“And that he was a friend to you when you needed it most. He sounds like a good man.”