But he didn’t want to, and that disturbed him.
Penryn started fidgeting. “Sorry,” she murmured. “I should not have called you that.”
No, she should not have. There were to be boundaries between them for a reason, and they had ignored too many of them already.
“You may do as you like,” he found himself saying, and finding that he meant it.
She took a step nearer and the fire caught on the logs, a seam of orange and yellow flickering along a crack in the wood.
“Not if you do not like it,” Penryn hedged, kneeling beside him. Belatedly he realised she had not done so simply to be close to him, but was detaching her bedroll from the pack. He felt utterly foolish to be disappointed.
He needed to govern himself better than this, and quickly. He had grown too lax, too easy in his manner, directly ignoring the cautions of all the instructors who had such faith in him.
They did not make mistakes.
That should have been more of a comfort than it had come to be.
“I do not find it disagreeable,” Grimult answered truthfully, wondering at himself.
She freed her bedroll, and to his horror, his as well, before walking back to the bed.
She placed hers nearest the wall, and before she could unroll his and place it so near to hers, he made his way over and pulled it free. “I will sleep by the door,” he declared, trying to keep his voice from betraying his panic.
Evidently, he failed somewhat miserably, for Penryn first looked surprised, then hurt at his adamant refusal.
“But...” she began, looking to her own place. “I should not be more comfortable than you are,” she protested. “So it only makes sense if we share in our good fortune.”
He would not have called it that. They were not to know of this place, of that he was certain. They had travelled away from their carefully chosen path, and this was the result. He might be grateful for the shelter, but he could not deny the lingering sense of wrongness that pervaded his every sense simply by being there.
And it raised far more questions than he had any business pondering.
He could not tell her the greater truth—could not admit his own weakness at the prospect of sharing a bed with her. He did not fear touching her, not that, but it was simply not done.
And most especially not done with the Lightkeep herself.
“My duty is to your protection,” he answered stiffly, hoping she would simply accept that and not require more of an explanation than he could give. “I will be more than satisfied knowing you will sleep well.”
She bit her lip, her expression betraying her unhappiness, before she nodded in acceptance. He did not like the resignation he saw in the line of her shoulders, the way she rubbed at her hands as if suddenly uncomfortable in his company.
“We should eat,” he offered, hoping to dispel the tension that had come between them. That was not what he wanted, only to keep a respectful distance from her, yet he feared he had offended her once again.
He was far too good at that, and it troubled him greatly.
“Yes,” she agreed, although there was a glumness to her tone that suggested she was merely trying to appease him rather than for the sake of her own hunger. Fear had deadened a great deal of his appetite, but he knew a full belly would make their sleep a better one.
He dug through the pack and produced their plates and filled them rotely, paying little attention to his actual selections. He was afraid of watching Penryn too closely, but so attuned was he to not watching her that he missed what she was doing entirely.
The groan was as guttural as it was mechanical, shocking him into dropping the knife that was evidently cutting through their wheel of cheese, and it clattered nosily against the plate before settling on the tabletop itself.
Penryn lurched backward from the cupboard with the strange basin, her hand which had once been outstretched now clutched to her chest.
“Are you hurt?” he asked briskly as he crossed over to her, trying to ascertain any damage to her person while also looking at whatever had created such a noise.
She laughed, a brittle, frightened thing. “No, not hurt. Besides my ears, maybe.”
He relaxed slightly at that, most especially when the metal arm settled back into place without causing any more raucous.
“You should not touch things that we do not understand,” Grimult chided without any venom. It was likely not dangerous, but the principle was sound.
He rather thought there was a scowl lurking behind the meek nod she gave him. He did not mean to treat her as a child, to scold as well as instruct—surely she knew that. But his heart still pounded even now that he knew the danger was not great peril after all.
“What do you think it did?” she asked, taking a step forward. She did not touch it, but her hand skimmed the lines of it. Dust had settled in the dips and crevices of the device, but he could tell it was a noble feat whatever it had been. “It is in a kitchen so it must have had a practical purpose.”
Likely so, but he was no great inventor, nor did he possess the imagination to suppose its purpose. “Come and eat,” he reminded her. She could take the stool and though she eyed him as she did so, she also did not argue with him. He had conceded little to her tonight, and that troubled him. He had refused her suggestion of a sleeping space and did not intend to indulge her speculation about the function of an angry metal fixture beside a basin.
But he had allowed her to call him Grim, and that was a privilege known to few, so perhaps that was something.
“You seem cross,” Penryn observed, accepting her plate and eating with little
