I brought it up two days later, after the arm was mostly healed.
I had spent those two days turning the thought over in my mind. Every time I decided against it, I remembered the way the poison had crawled up my arm, the fever that had nearly taken me before I reached Southshore. If it happened again, or if it happened to someone else, I didn’t want to be caught without somewhere to go.
We were in the study. The older man, Fahrad, was there, along with Seth and one of the others whose name I still didn’t know. The room was dim, lit only by a low fire. I kept it simple.
“I know someone in Southshore,” I said. “Good with wounds. Better than most. If we ever need somewhere to go that isn’t here… she could be useful.”
Fahrad studied me for a long moment. Long enough that I started to wonder if I had already said too much.
“An outsider,” he said.
Not a question. A statement. Testing me.
“Not inside the manor. Just a contact. Someone we can send people to if they’re too far out or too badly hurt to make it back.”
He didn’t answer right away. Seth didn’t say anything either, but I could feel him watching me. The fire popped. The silence stretched.
“Very well,” Fahrad said at last. “We will look into it.”
That was all. No promises. No thanks. Just a quiet acknowledgment.
I left the room feeling like I had done something irreversible, even though I couldn’t name what it was. The thought followed me through the rest of the day, settling somewhere deep and cold in my chest. I had given them a name. They would follow the thread. And I would have to live with whatever they found.
Last part