She weighed next to nothing—so thin and fragile, she might have been nothing more than a memory, a hallucination brought on by cold and fatigue. Her mother, though, made Seb want to smile. The woman had damn near died for her child tonight and she’d faced a parent’s worst nightmare, but she still had the starch to stand up to an oversized brute like him. Too bad he hadn’t met her years ago, before life in the army had burnt all the emotion out of him. “There you are!” Mrs. Parrish opened the door, her hair even more unkempt than earlier and her eyes drooping with exhaustion. “We’ve had another batch come in—drunken idiots fell off the roof at Parliament trying to steal some lord’s airship. Doctor is setting bones and stitching them up as we speak. I’m afraid there isn’t a bed left in the house—not even mine.” Seb winced. After all they’d just been through, he was damn sure going to get this child the care she needed.
