The Ashford courier found Lyra beside a road pump, trying to persuade a strip of wet cloth to leave her boot.
He dismounted, saw the mud on her sleeve, and looked away with the practiced kindness of a man paid to notice important people.
“Lady Ashford. Your uncle sends his warmest regards.”
“Are they waterproof?”
He held out a leather envelope.
The seal was intact. Three silver leaves curved around the family sun. She had once pressed that mark into practice wax until her tutor complained that she was using an expensive seal to stamp pictures of beetles.
She wiped her fingers before taking it.
Felix sat on the pump wall with a folded coat beneath him. Jian stood in the shade, two fingers resting against his own wrist as he completed a slow circulation. Barnaby occupied the direction post, where he had already corrected the distance to the next lodging with a pencil.
