Ethan found the fire down to embers by the time he reached camp. Gareth looked up first, blade still resting across his knees, whetstone paused mid-stroke.
"You've been gone a while," Gareth said. Not an accusation. Just an observation, the way he said most things.
"I was talking to someone," Ethan said.
That got Serena's attention. She lifted her head from where she'd been wrapping the cut on her shoulder, her eyes sharp despite the late hour. "Someone. In a dungeon. On a floor we thought was cleared."
"The Watcher isn't dead," Ethan said. "It passed on. There's a difference, like I told you. And apparently it wasn't the only thing living down here."
He sat by the fire and set Veilcutter across his lap, angled so the firelight caught the storm-grey metal. Kael, who had been dead asleep only a minute earlier, was suddenly very much awake, blinking at the blade like it had personally offended him.
"That's a new sword," Kael said slowly. "You didn't have that sword an hour ago."
