The prospect of having to move isn't a thrilling one — and it's too easy to doubt I'd like you to, an instinct that has little to do with Stephen other than being wildly unfair to him — but the fact remains that trying to get back to her own room and luggage in the cold light of morning without having to have any sort of conversation with anyone else...

She'd already been caught leaving by Orlov in the first place. Coming back from her 'personal matter' carrying all of her clothes is not going to do wonders for her credibility.

“Ugh,” is a profound groan, exhaling a harsh breath as she stretches, sits up; her hair a mess of curls, half her back a mess of scars from the rage demon's claws. Shaking a hand through her hair to loosen it out, she doesn't — besides sitting up — rush to disentangle, though it's an immediate acknowledgment of the point. “It was the goal,” she sighs; if she'd been strategically planning, it could have been an excuse, but she really hadn't. Hadn't seen this coming,

though she should have, she thinks.

“I should go,” she says, the slightly unconvincing tone of someone convincing herself.