“The tea will get cold.” Sarsine bustled unnecessarily with the pot, and Kestrel was grateful to have a moment for her expression to be what ever it was without the burden of someone else’s gaze.

She told Sarsine, “I’d like to celebrate Ninarrith with you.”

“If we’re here come then,” the woman said darkly, but shook her head when Kestrel peered at her. “Go on. Take them.”

The keys were heavy.

“They’re for the house,” Sarsine said. “A full set.”

Their weight on her palm. Something she thought she should remember.

She set the keys aside. “And this?” She ran a finger down a crease in the muslin of the clunky, wrapped thing.

Sarsine lifted her brows—a little sardonically, Kestrel thought, although the edge of the woman’s expression appeared less to do with Kestrel and more to do with a knowledge Sarsine had and Kestrel didn’t. The black brows, their quality of curbed cynicism, dry amusement . . . again Kestrel recognized him in her. He’d looked at Kestrel like that, before. She wondered why she felt comfortable with Sarsine and not with him, and if that ease was despite the resemblance, or because of it.

“See for yourself,” Sarsine said.

It was a dagger, bright beneath the opened muslin. Nestled in its scabbard, hooked to a slim belt. The leather of the belt was sturdy yet supple, not made with any particular elegance but with an eye for durability and comfort. There were few holes for the buckle’s tongue: a sign that the maker was assured of the belt’s fit. The scabbard, like the belt, was clean and strong in design, not given to the fanciful, though the ferrule was more severely pointed than Kestrel had seen before (yes, she realized. She knew daggers well). Not so sharp that it’d be likely to hurt the bearer, but pointed enough to do damage if the scabbard were gripped in the fist and driven into an opponent. And the scabbard wasn’t entirely without decoration. Just below its throat was a symbol: two rings, one fitted inside the other, distinguishable only because the raised texture of each was different. The symbol was echoed on the dagger’s hilt, in the round of the pommel, which was weighted enough to kill if brought down on certain parts of the skull. The hilt—Kestrel wrapped her fingers around it—was a perfect fit for her hand, cross guards hooked to protect the fingers.

She pulled the blade free. It was very Valorian. Save for the straightened point and that unknown symbol, its every element showed the Valorian style, from the hooked cross guard to the double edge to the blade’s beveled shaft. The steel’s faint blue hue showed its quality, but Kestrel would have known it anyway. The dagger felt light in her grip, agile. Beautifully forged. Balanced. Fine in its proportions. Made by a master.

Kestrel touched a thumb to its edge. Blood sprang to the skin. “Gods,” Kestrel said, and sucked at the cut.

Sarsine laughed. “A convert now, are you?”

Kestrel was startled. She’d forgotten about Sarsine. She frowned, unsure why she’d said what she had. It had been the kick of instinct. Or maybe someone else’s instinct, rooted inside her, inhabiting a hidden space that made it feel natural for her to invoke gods she didn’t believe in. She pushed the blade back in, set the whole thing back on the table with a thunk.

“Why are you giving this to me?” The keys she understood. She was not meant to be a prisoner here, but a guest. More than a guest, if she read the gift rightly. Guests don’t have access to their host’s every room.

But the dagger . . .

“I could kill you with this,” she said. “Right now.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Sarsine still looked amused. “You’re hardly in fighting form.”

“That’s not the point.” It was starting to upset her a little, the keys and the dagger together. The way each gift, in its own way, showed a trust absolute.

“The thinking,” Sarsine said carefully, “was that you shouldn’t feel defenseless.”

Kestrel opened her mouth, then shut it, not realizing until then that this was how she had felt, and that the first emotion that had claimed her after falling under the visual spell of the dagger was a sense of security.

Sarsine said, “We—”

Kestrel looked at her sharply.

“I’m not worried that you’ll hurt someone else,” Sarsine said. The phrasing of the words indicated exactly what the worry had been—or maybe still was.

“I see.” Her mouth thinned. “I don’t need a dagger for suicide. But I wouldn’t do it. I’m no coward.”