The second bell found them already under the palace.
No coats that announced a captain. No attire that would make the servants turn to Chester. Cassian walked as if the stones owed him a path. Chester kept half a step behind and to the left, close enough to be useful, far enough that their shoulders would not remember the bed.
They did not speak of Lysandra. They did not speak of three days.
"Same passage," Cassian said.
"Same boy?" Chester asked.
"If he is wise, he has forgotten our faces."
The kitchens were louder at the turn-over. Heat. Iron. The slap of dough. Cassian cut through it without looking at the cooks who looked at him. Chester watched hands instead of faces—who flinched, who wiped a bench twice.
The slops corridor stank of the morning's buckets. The hanging game had been thinned. The buttery door stood unlatched again.
Empty pallet. Cold candle. No coat.
Cassian crouched, touched the stone. "He moved."
