I was told you were resting," he says.
"I was," I say. "And then I wasn't."
He looks at me for a moment — at the coat, the bandaged hands, the particular set of my jaw that I know from experience communicates that I have just come from something difficult and am not fully through it yet. He does not ask. I almost appreciate that.
"Can I come in?" he says.
I look at him. I look at Jason Vayne, who may or may not be my father, who stood at the edge of a clearing last night and watched me shift with an expression that knew, who has been in this palace for three days with an angle I still cannot fully read.
"Yes," I say.
We sit — him in the chair Varder vacated, me on the bed with my back against the headboard — and for a moment neither of us speaks. The ward is quiet. The morning light has shifted to full day now, bright through the window, and in that light Jason looks older than he did in the clearing.
