*Penny*
With complete faith in Kingsley’s ability to handle this challenging matter, I hold Lautius’s gaze and try to convey that everything will turn out well in the end, even if at the moment the situation seems quite dire indeed. I have had enough encounters with bullies to recognize them when I see them. They might have taken their fists to Lautius, but the danger of them is easily dispelled with a tone that signals who is truly in command. I was a tiny little thing when I was younger, so small that other children often taunted me. “When you stand up to them, never flinch, never back down,” my father told me. “You will be at their mercy if they spot a weakness.”
Like a wounded gazelle to a lion.
“I’m sorry,” Lautius says, his tone filled with contrition. “I knew King usually spends
