Chapter 214 The Common Life

• Finn
• I sit on the edge of a thin straw mattress in a tiny room, one of many honeycombing what was once a playhouse. Crooked nails jut from equally thin walls, clearly constructed as quickly as possible when the townsfolk discovered they were going to be hosting their new queen and a not insignificant portion of her army. Laughter echoes over the tops, where they don’t quite reach the ceiling.
• “It’s safe,” I tell Elian through the mind-link. “Or about as safe as anything is.”