All of them well-used and warm and breathing.
He snapped his fingers.
His trousers materialized. His shirt. His traveling clothes — dark, practical, road-worn. The red cloak appeared last, settling over his shoulders with the familiar weight. He was dressed in two seconds. He turned.
The petite woman was there.
Rika's fake husband. She had been sitting at the edge of the clearing with her knees drawn up and her short hair still damp from the night before, watching everything with the careful stillness of a woman who had been told her fate and was not sure whether to run or accept it.
She looked up at him.
He looked at her.
He reached down. He gripped her by the back of the collar. He lifted her. She was light — a petite body, compact and wiry, the body of someone who had spent years pretending to be something she was not and had the taut, guarded physicality that came from permanent performance.
She made a startled sound.
He settled her over his shoulder.
