Lara said yes before her mind had the chance to interfere.
Not maybe. Not if you want. Not some cautious, fumbling version of the answer that would have given him room to retreat and hide behind pride again.
Just yes, immediate and low and certain, the sort of answer a frightened child should get when they ask for something small and brave.
Neris blinked at her as though the speed of it surprised him.
Kaelith, halfway through stealing the last sugared fruit, grinned so broadly it was almost obscene. "See? I told you she would say yes."
Lara cut her a look. "You told him to ask me?"
Kaelith shrugged with all the shamelessness of her bloodline. "I told him you looked like someone who was bad at saying no when children were sad."
Malvoria made a choking sound into her wine.
Elysia, to her credit, did not laugh. She only set down her cup and gave Lara a look that was half apology, half this is your life now.
Lara rose from her chair and crouched beside Neris again. "All right, kid. Bed it is."
He nodded, but his body stayed stiff, as though agreeing to sleep near her did not mean he trusted the choice. Lara understood that.
She held out a hand.
Neris stared at it for a moment. Then, cautiously, he put his smaller one into hers.
The room went strangely quiet after that. Not because anyone was trying to make it solemn, but because even Malvoria seemed to understand there was something fragile in the simple fact of that hand in Lara's.
A beginning, maybe. Or maybe only a truce.
Lara led him from the dining room at an easy pace. No rushing. No talking unless he did. The castle had gone softer with night. Lamps glowed low in their brackets. Servants moved like shadows.
Somewhere far off, Kaelith could still be heard arguing with someone about the unjust tyranny of bedtime.
Neris walked beside Lara, his hand warm and small and a little sticky from dessert. He did not look up at her. He did not let go.
Lara had no idea what room he'd been given. She had to stop a passing servant and ask, which made her feel absurdly incompetent.
The servant, to his credit, answered without blinking and directed her toward one of the smaller guest suites near the nursery wing.
The room was prepared in the efficient way castle rooms always were. Fire banked low in the hearth. Curtains drawn. Bed turned down.
One lamp left burning at the bedside. Someone had even placed a little carved wooden fox on the pillow, perhaps thinking that children were simple creatures who could be bribed into safety with toys.
Neris looked at the room and then at Lara, clearly waiting to see what happened next.
Lara let go of his hand only to kneel by the bed and pull back the blankets a little farther. "Right. So. This is the sleeping part."
He said nothing.
Lara glanced around, suddenly aware that all her expertise in life had not prepared her for this exact moment. She could track enemies across frozen ground. She could survive on half-rations and bad temper.
She could kill with her bare hands and flirt through a concussion. But putting a small child to bed? That seemed to require an entirely different kind of intelligence.
"Do you… usually sleep with the lamp on?" she asked.
Neris shrugged.
Excellent. Very helpful.
Lara tried again. "Do you want it on?"
A longer pause. Then: "A little."
"Okay." She adjusted the lamp wick lower so the room stayed warm with gold light but lost the harshness. "How's that?"
Neris looked at it, then nodded once.
There. Progress.
He climbed onto the bed without being told, moving carefully like someone used to making himself unobtrusive.
He sat on top of the covers first, not under them, hands folded in his lap, and looked at Lara as if expecting instructions for the rest.
Lara leaned against the post at the foot of the bed. "You can get under the blanket. It's not a trap."
That earned her the tiniest narrowing of his eyes, as if he were offended she had guessed exactly what he was thinking.
He slid under the covers.
Still fully dressed.
Lara sighed. "You know, people usually take off at least their boots first."
Neris immediately pulled the blanket up to his chin and stared at her in naked suspicion.
Lara lifted both hands. "Or not. Your call."
He kept staring for another second, then, perhaps deciding she truly was that strange, kicked his boots off under the blanket.
One landed on the carpet with a dull thud. The other bounced off the side of the bed.
Lara bent, picked it up, and set both properly by the wall.
When she straightened, Neris was still watching her.
It made her feel absurdly visible.
She moved to the chair by the bedside and sat. The wood creaked under her weight. "All right," she said. "There. I'm here."
The room settled around them. Firelight. Lamp glow. The faint rustle of night against the window.
Neris looked at the ceiling for a while. Then at the blanket. Then back at Lara.
His voice, when it came, was so quiet Lara almost missed it.
"I don't like you."
Lara blinked once.
Then, because the kid at least deserved honesty in return, she nodded. "That's fair."
Neris picked at a thread in the blanket. "But I'm too afraid to sleep alone."
That hit much harder than it should have.
Lara felt something old and bruised stir in her chest. She knew fear at night. Knew it from camps and barracks and the years before she had been big enough to scare anyone back.
She knew what it was to choose company you didn't trust over darkness you trusted less.
So she did not joke.
She did not make it lighter than it was.
She only stood, crossed to the bed, and sat carefully on top of the covers near his feet, leaning back against the headboard because the chair suddenly felt too far away.
"That's fair too," she said.
Neris looked up at her from where he lay half-curled beneath the blanket. "You're not mad?"
"No."
"Why?"
Lara huffed a quiet laugh. "Because I don't like most people either, and sometimes I still don't want to be alone with them."
He thought about that.
Then, he shifted a few inches closer beneath the blanket.
Lara stayed still, letting him choose the distance.
After a minute he asked, "Are you going to leave when I fall asleep?"
Lara looked down at him. In the low light his eyes seemed darker, less red than amber, framed by lashes too long for someone carrying this much distrust.
"No," she said. "I'll stay."
His mouth tightened, as if he wanted badly to believe her and hated himself for wanting it.
"Promise?"
Lara did not answer right away.
She had learned, painfully, what promises cost when the world became determined to make liars of people. But this was small. Immediate. Something she could control.
So she placed one hand flat over her own heart and said, "Yeah. I promise."
Neris watched her for another second, then turned onto his side, facing away but no longer rigid. It wasn't trust. Not yet. More like exhausted permission.
Lara leaned her head back against the carved wood behind her and listened to the room breathe.
After a while, Neris said, almost asleep already, "Kaelith talks too much."
Lara smiled into the dimness. "That's the truest thing I've heard all day."
A tiny pause.
Then, softer still: "Don't tell her I said that."
"I'm absolutely going to tell her."
Neris made the faintest offended sound and curled tighter into the blanket.