KiaThe safe house was Bren's.She hadn't asked whose it was until the second day. "Mine," Bren had said, with the attitude of a man who did not elaborate unless elaboration served a purpose."You prepared it," she asked."Yes," he said."Before we left Endra," she said."Before we left the mountain estate," he said.She had looked at him then, at this quiet, precise man who had spent eleven years in the margins of Xander's life, and understood that Bren's version of loyalty was the kind that prepared safe houses on a different continent before they were needed, just in case."Thank you," she said."Yes," he said, and went back to whatever Bren did when he wasn't being specifically useful, which appeared to be everything simultaneously and at very low visibility.The house was in a valley settlement, smaller than Endra, human-majority, the kind of place around a mill that never grew beyond its original function. The surrounding land was farmland and forest, and the specific open quie
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