Page 66 of The Last Rose of Ashwood

“People are afraid. Someone has to sound certain.”

Elowen studied her. “Is that leadership?”

Seren glanced back at the reports. “It is often theater.”

That earned a small, tired smile from the healer. “At least you know.”

Seren tapped one finger against the map, though the motion had ceased to serve any practical purpose several minutes ago. The roads north of Briar Hollow remained where they had been drawn, the mountains had not shifted, and none of the inked markings had offered an explanation for the woman who appeared beside every mystery with mud on her cloak and answers hidden behind her teeth.

“What do you know about the scholar?”

Elowen’s hands paused over the herbs she had been sorting. The faint smile at her mouth faded, replaced by something more cautious.

“Elira?”

Seren nodded.

“Why?”

“I am curious.”

Elowen looked at her across the table, one brow lifting with the weary patience of a woman accustomed to hearing lies presented as symptoms. “Suspicious.”

“Both can be true.”

More often than Seren cared to admit, they were nearly indistinguishable. Suspicion kept a person alive; curiosity merely convinced them to move closer before deciding whether the danger was worth surviving. Elira Thorn had inspired both with irritating efficiency.

Seren waited.

Elowen exhaled and rubbed both hands over her face, leaving the faint scent of rosemary in the air between them. “She has helped people.”

“I’ve heard.” The words came more sharply than Seren intended. She had heard it from half the village already, always delivered with the same mixture of gratitude and unease, as though no one knew whether to thank Elira or begin checking the thresholds after she passed through them.

“The boy with the nightmares slept through the night after she sat with him,” Elowen continued. “Jacob. He had not slept longer than an hour at a time in nearly three weeks.”

Seren’s finger stilled against the map. She remembered the boy: hollow-eyed, pale beneath his freckles, his hands trembling around a wooden cup while his mother described waking to find him clawing at the floorboards. Children did not simply recover from three weeks of terror because a stranger sat beside their bed and spoke gently. “What did she do?”

“That is the question.” Elowen leaned back in her chair. “She says she helped him relax.”

Seren stared at her.

Elowen gave a slow nod. “Exactly.”

For several heartbeats, Seren waited for the explanation to become less absurd. It did not. “She said that?”

“With a straight face.”

“Infuriating.”

A smile nearly betrayed her before she pressed it away. Elira had a particular talent for offering words that were technically answers while ensuring they illuminated nothing. Even now, Seren could hear the scholar’s cool voice delivering the explanation as though everyone else’s inability to understand were a personal defect.

“That seems to be a theme with her,” Seren added.

Elowen’s expression sharpened. “She is private, not cruel.”

The distinction caught Seren off guard.

Her thoughts had already begun arranging what she knew about Elira into the categories that made uncertainty bearable: scholar, liar, possible spy, practitioner of old magic, woman too composed around roots that made children walk toward wells. A category created boundaries. Boundaries created strategy.