She looked up when I got out of the car and something in her face was the expression she'd had when she'd first arrived at the diner — the frightened version, the one that knew it was in trouble.
"You were at the Aris packlands," she said.
"Yes," I said. "Pria Vane."
"Is she alright?"
"She will be." I looked at Mara. "Come inside."
---
She told me over tea — Bekah's kitchen, just the two of us, the round table having cleared out the moment people sensed that the conversation needed room.
"I've been struggling," she said. Not preamble, not working toward it. The directness of someone who'd decided that the indirect version had already cost enough. "Since coming here. I had what savings I had when I left the Aris pack, and they've been running out, and I didn't want to ask because—" S
