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He heard Selena clear her throat.

“...Um,” she said, “I just wanted to thank you for saving me the way you did. And, um. To apologize for my behavior. And for my... ah... for... er...”

Maybe if he just sat here on the edge of the bed and didn’t move, she would forget he’d said anything and think the room was empty.

“...Well, um. Sorry. Again.” Her voice was fading a little, as if she were moving away from the door. “And thank you. Again. Uh... hmm...”

Hector waited. Hector listened.

After a while of persistent silence, he was fairly sure that she was gone. He decided to grab the Scarf and check.

Yeah. She was gone.

Phew.

He relaxed.

Then he realized how fucking pathetic that just was.

Aw, dammit. He definitely should’ve talked to her. That was super rude.

He sighed and laid down. He’d have to find her and try to talk to her tomorrow. Probably not to apologize, though. He felt like that would just make things even weirder, considering she only came here to thank him. But he could at least check in on her. He seemed to recall some weirdness with her reaper. It was all kind of a blur, though. Garovel would probably remember.

So many things to worry about. So many people to worry about. Somehow, he was feeling even more overwhelmed now than he had during any of the battles he’d been in recently.

That probably wasn’t normal, he figured.

Soon enough, he let his fatigue take over and fell asleep. Deep and dreamless.

It was not Garovel who awoke him, however.

“Get up, Hector.”

He opened his eyes to see the not wholly welcomed face of Zeff Elroy there at the foot of his bed.

“It’s time to train,” the Lord Elroy said.

What time was it? Ugh, actually, he didn’t even care. Garovel was the one in charge of his schedule, not Zeff, so Hector just rolled over and snuggled into his sheets. “No, it isn’t. Go away...”

“Hmph. I’ll give you this one warning. You can get up. Or I can douse you in ice water. Your choice.”

Hector groaned and sat up. “Are you training me to hate you? Because, if so, then...”

“Get dressed.”

“Fine...”

Hector dragged himself out of bed, threw on some light clothes that he didn’t mind getting destroyed, and followed Zeff downstairs. “Shouldn’t you be with your family, right now?”

“They’re resting.”

“You should be, too.”

“I am not tired.”

“Bullshit.”

Zeff paused in the middle of the stairs to throw him a look of disapproval.

Hector merely returned the man’s gaze flatly.

They continued on, all the way down into the main courtyard.

A few people lingered about, all familiar Rainlord faces, though Hector couldn’t have put names to pretty much any of them. Zeff led him to the edge of the courtyard--and then over the cliff and out onto the lake.

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Of all the things on his to-do list, Hector knew that figuring out how to handle Leo was pretty much the top priority. Thankfully, he still had time, but that didn’t stop him from thinking about how catastrophically horrible things could become if negotiations with Leo broke down. Maybe it had been a mistake to direct him back to Atreya.

Agh. It was too late for regrets. That kind of thinking was useless at this point, he felt.

And it wasn’t like the situation was hopeless, either. Far from it. He already had a few ideas about how to approach the Leo problem, and he had a feeling that talking to the Queen would help clarify his thinking. He could hardly imagine what would come out of that conversation. After the mayhem in both Sair and the Undercrust, it now felt like a lifetime had transpired since his last encounter with the Queen.

Not to mention, he had no idea how she was going to react to everything that he had to tell her. He’d previously been concerned that she would simply be angry that he had brought so many fugitives from the Vanguard into her country, but now, a part of him was worried that she would take a stance similar to Roman regarding the Rainlords.

Would she see them as tools to be exploited? Or merely potential allies?

Too many unanswerable questions. He didn’t want to get lost in pointless worrying. He didn’t have time for that. He barely even had time for sleep.

It had been a long day of meetings, and now that it was over, he felt a different kind of exhausted. Not so much physical--though that was certainly there, too--but mental. He wondered if he’d talked more today than he had in any other day in his life. It seemed quite possible, but he was way too tired to devote any more brain power to the notion.

He was preparing for bed in his own room--properly preparing for it with silky pajamas and everything for the first time in ages--when a knock arrived at his door.

Garovel wasn’t immediately around to tell him who it was, and he had also removed the Scarf and lain it on the nightstand by his bed. Momentarily, he considered grabbing it and trying to discern the identity of the knocker thereby, but then he just shook his head and said, “Who is it?”

“Selena Cortes,” came a young and feminine voice.

Holy fucking shit, a girl was at the door to his bedroom.

“I don’t know if you remember me, Lord Goffe, or if I’m bothering you--ah, er--if I am, just tell me, and I’ll leave you alone.”

Unsurprisingly, Hector had no idea what to say. Should he even say anything? Should he open the door? Should he tell her to open the door? Should he cry to Garovel for help like a goddamn baby? He was unclear.

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“What?” said Roman. “I’m not saying you should try to keep them under your thumb like some kind of dictator. That’d be a good way to make them hate you. For anything like this to work, they would have to consider it a beneficial relationship from their end, too.”

Still, Hector merely kept looking at him.

Roman sighed. “Hector. Trust me. If you just let them go, they will.”

‘That, or they’ll try to take Warrenhold from you,’ said Voreese. ‘‘Bout a fifty-fifty shot either way, I’d say.’

Hector shot her a look, now. “The Rainlords wouldn’t do something like that.”

‘Oh, right, because they’re so honorable or whatever?’ said Voreese. ‘Please. Lotta pretty words and warm feelings--that’s all that is. Make no mistake, Hector. If they ever come to see you as an obstacle, they’ll turn on you in a heartbeat. Unless you marry into one of the families, maybe. In fact, I bet they’ll try to pressure you into that soon.’

‘Gah, why’d you have to go and warn him?’ said Garovel. ‘I wanted to see his raw reaction when they suddenly spring it on him, dammit.’

‘Oh. Ah. My bad.’

Hector’s face was stuck as he thought about what they’d just said. Marriage? What the fuck? Who the hell was gonna--?

‘There, you see? Look at him. You’ve ruined it.’

‘Sorry. It’s probably for the best that he’s thinking about it, though. Wouldn’t want him to make a poor decision while he’s too surprised to think clearly.’

‘As if I’d let him do that.’

‘Oho. Feeling protective of your prize-winning pony? Don’t want him to breed with any old donkey, eh?’

‘Of course.’

That was enough to bring Hector back into the conversation. “You guys are disgusting.”

“I think they’re kidding,” said Roman.

‘Of course we’re kidding,’ said Vorese. ‘Hector can fuck all the donkeys he wants. We don’t care.’

The conversation lasted until the end of the meal, and as was perhaps to be expected, there was considerably more shit talk than business talk. Roman and Voreese both kept trying to encourage him to do something about the Rainlords--what, exactly, remained unclear. The way they talked about it, they made it sound like they wanted him to trick the Rainlords somehow, but just as before, they kept saying that it would have to be a mutually beneficial relationship. Or something.

Hector didn’t really understand what they were trying to say, and he wasn’t entirely sure that he wanted to, either.

After the meal, they went their separate ways again. Roman said that they would be sticking around Warrenhold for a while and that he also wanted to go with Hector to meet Leo again. Hector didn’t know if that last part was such a good idea, but he couldn’t think of a very good reason to refuse the man, nor did he particularly want to talk to Leo without any sort of backup again, either. Hector was still reluctant, however, and in the end, he told Roman that he wanted to think about it a bit more. Roman didn’t look like he appreciated that answer very much, but the man didn’t argue with him.